Adam was making his way down the road when he suddenly realised something strange.

Looking up to the sky he saw that the moon, which was meant to be silver coloured, was instead crimson red.

At the same time of this discovery, Adam could hear a wretched howl in the distance.

*Aaaaoooooouuuuuuu!*

The howl seemed to pervade throughout the woodlands, sinking into the earth and Adam's consciousness.

Tugging his coat closer to himself, Adam set off at a brisker pace, keen to reach the end of these strange woods which unnerved him so.

Luckily for Adam, it wasn't long before he saw what seemed to be the fringe of the woodlands. Sparse plantation of trees and the occasional homestead.

It was around this time that a heavy fog beset Adam's surrounding, clouding the shapes of objects around him.

Adam looked at his watch and noted the time.

1:13 a.m.

Much too early for morning fog, suggesting an unnatural cause for this phenomena.

Continuing on, he saw homesteads and cottages become ever more prevalent, eventually becoming more numerous than trees. Half of the residences had their doors and windows boarded up or wide open, revealing numerous cobwebs.

Everything was deathly still, too quiet for a normal village. Usually you would at least hear a few people snoring, or moving beneath their sheets. However, there was none of that in this still village.

Then, a grinding noise could be heard in the centre of the village. The clatter of chains and the splashing of water, an odd combination of sounds which Adam knew too well.

Making his way to the centre of the village, an area which seemed to be some sort of plaza, he arrived in front of what he knew would be there.

A stone well, made entirely of cobbled river stones and wooden reinforcement. Beside it stood a hunchbacked figure holding onto the chains which led to the recesses of the well.

*New Quest*

*Ask for direction from the Town Mayor*

*Reward: A direction Wink [https://forum.royalroadl.com/images/smilies/wink.png]*

So, this figure before him was the mayor of this small settlement.

Well, it wouldn't be good for his wellbeing if he just paced around doing nothing, so he approached the hunchbacked figure.

At first he didn't even turn to look at Adam, only focusing on pulling the heavy metal chain.

Only after about three minutes of pulling did he tie the chain on a stake of wood beside the well and turn to look at Adam.

This surprised him, how could someone pull a bucket from a well for over three minutes, how deep must that well be?

Anyways, this question was thrown to the back of his mind as he opened his mouth to speak.

However he was stopped as he looked into the hunchbacked figures face. It was covered in a cowl and a course veil was draped across his face, covering every bit of it.

The figure simply gave Adam a short gaze before it pointed towards a cobbled road which lead outside the village, a cobbled road so overgrown with vines that it seemed to blend into the forest around it.

In the distance, Adam could faintly make out a large towering shape at the end of that road. Towering parapets and towers made up the majority of that shape.

Adam turned to look at the mayor once more, however, he was gone.

It wasn't the first time someone had disappeared on him like that, but by the looks of things it wouldn't be the last.

Ultimately deciding to turn his back to this strange village, he set out on the road again, towards the towering structure in the distance.

Too late did Adam realise, only when he was in the road, that he couldn't sense any heartbeat or breathing from the hunchbacked figure.

When he exited the main centre of the village, the fog surrounding Adam seemed to strangely intensify. It grew in strength to the point that it even impeded his vision and gathered behind him, almost as if blocking his way back.

Making nothing of this, Adam continued on. He was already on full alert by this point and prepared to fight at any moment.

The road to the structure was uneventful, albeit eerie. The broadleaves around Adam seemed to blacken the further he went along the road, the leaves turning the same crimson colour as the moon.

Eventually, he reached a point in which he could clearly see the edifice. It was a towering grey stone structure, a miracle of masonry and engineering. The wall was fifteen metres high and slanted outwards, he crenellations atop the towering wall were intricately decorated with gargoyles and manned by shadowy figures with what appeared to be crossbows. Behind the walls appeared to be a huge central structure which branched off countless parapets and balustrades, the very epitome of magnificence and wealth. The tallest tower stretched unto the dark clouds within the crimson sky, creating an extremely ominous atmosphere surrounding this citadel.

Adam mused that the overall atmosphere would match that of a game in 'Call of Cthulhu';

Red Moon - Check

Crimson Sky - Check

Guarded Summoning Ground - Check

Inexplicably Eccentric Locals - Check

Inexplicably Strange Circumstances - Check

Seeing as the entire place was entirely out of place, Adam turned to look at the entrance.

It was a towering mass of metal and wood in the shape of a gate, guarded on either side by what appeared to be halberdiers in black plate armour and red arming doublets.

*New Quest*

*Talk to the guards*

*Reward: Entrance into the Citadel*

Yeah, he wasn't talking to the guards, not alive anyways.

Beside these certain halberdiers lay ten corpses, the corpses of the people which had gone before him in fact.

Well, that's ten of them, there's still four left considering that George's body isn't here.

It didn't matter much to Adam, but it didn't seem like those guards would let him through just like the system suggested they would.

Therefore, Adam devised his own strategy of talking to them.

He used shadow footwork to run across the murky moat which surrounded the citadel, no doubt containing various species of lesser krakens if Adam's imagination was let loose.

Although running across a water was a tricky manoeuvre, it wasn't all that hard to accomplish with shadow footwork and before he knew it he was already leaning against the wall of the castle.

He sneaked behind one of the guards and gathered shadows around his index finger, allowing it the greatest penetrative power he could muster and used it to punch through the black steel bascinet which guarded the guards spine.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Adam was surprised at how hard the steel was, much harder than ordinary steel. Henceforth he would call the material blacksteel.

The guard dropped to the floor, just as expected. Adam bounded to the other guard in order to properly utilise the element of surprise. But was instead surprised as he found a halberd pointed at him instead.

These guards must have been trained extremely well. This man just lost his friend from out of nowhere and he was ready to fight within split second?!

Well, it made no difference as Adam grabbed the halberd and pulled the guard towards him, sweeping the neck underneath the closed bascinet with a chop, cleanly decapitating him. Although Adam noted two strange things.

Why was the neck so easy to chop through with his hands? Sure, he could do it but it should have taken a lot more effort.

Also, why was the blood white?

Adam's answer was answered as he noticed a body behind him shuffling just as the one in front of him collapsed.

Turning around in a whirl of motion, he was met with a horrifying sight.

When he had punctured the blacksteel bascinet of the guard earlier, it had been completely blown off. Now, he saw a rotting mass of maggots and white blood making for a sorry excuse of a face.

What was the first, and best response in this scenario.

Adam killed it, again, although he made sure to not touch it with his hands.

The appearance of the undead guard startled Adam to be sure, but he wasn't surprised anymore.

Unlike back at the village, he actually did notice that these two had no heartbeat, and thus was prepared for a horrifying revelation.

Although the appearance of the undead didn't seem all that horrifying to him for some reason, perhaps it was because he was used to sharing his body with 'Adam' but it didn't impact his psyche at all.

The only change he implemented in his strategy was to bind his hands with white tape, so that he wouldn't get some sort of infection from hitting the undead if injured, and to prioritise ripping them apart over targeting their meridians as he had done with the first guard.

He had targeted the back of the neck, an attack that should have disabled a human body with practically no effort, but it didn't seem to affect the undead at all.

Anyways, moving on to greater things, Adam turned his attention to the blue screen which was bugging his vision since he finished the guard off.

*Quest Updated*

*Meet the Countess*

*Reward: Getting to know her Wink [https://forum.royalroadl.com/images/smilies/wink.png]*

Looking at how things were going, he wasn't sure their meeting would be quite as friendly as the system suggested.

He may as well go ahead and do it then.

The first obstacle in his path, a huge gate made with heavy oaken wood and reinforced with blacksteel, it would prove to be an impossible obstacle for even the most elite of armies.

It was solved with a quick use of Shadow Form, easily slipping past the grates in the gate.

Inside, the castle was merely a collection of wooden buildings which constituted the stables, numerous smithies and other crafting workshops required for the ordinary feudal military organisation.

The courtyard was completely devoid of guards apart from the entrance to the central structure. The majority of guards appeared to be manning the walls or patrolling the hallways and parapets of the keep.

With the lack of heavy security, it was as simple as a walk in the park for Adam to climb to the third story of the keep and enter through an ajar window to a guest room. The only complication being that he wasn't quite sure how the undead would detect intruders, thereby forcing him to minimise everything that could possibly give him away. This included regulating his breathing, heartbeat, temperature and sound, the only change on the outside being that he had padded the soles of his boots with a black fabric so as to move silently in the stone halls of the keep.

The room he arrived in through the window turned out to be guest room. In here Adam could see the corpse of another trainee wrapped within the bloodied sheets of the bed, although the perpetrator of this deed was nowhere to be seen.

Making his way to the door, he leaned outside the window while being careful of keeping to the shadows. Although it was ultimately a useless endeavour as the entire hallway was falling into disrepair. Let alone having lit torch sconces, the frescoes on the ceiling were peeling off into the floor and the stone walls were crumbling. The only semblance of security being the regular patrols of undead halberdiers, numbering three apiece, and the occasional walking undead wandering through the ruined keep.

It seemed like the walking undead weren't really part of the security of this castle, but were rather unfortunate victims to said security who later became undead. There also seemed to be some sort of difference between these ones and the undead halberdiers as the halberdiers tended to move quickly and execute complicated techniques with their halberds whereas the walking ones tended to not do much at all.

It was merely a point of observation as Adam made his way through the keep. The majority of undead didn't detect him and the one's that did were promptly rid of their undeath. As Adam gained more and more experience fighting the undead he noticed that he was promptly filling up his experience bar, coming ever closer to level seven in [Shadow Monk].

In one particular instance he walked into a room which locked the door behind him and three full complements of halberdiers rushed in through the other entrances to ambush him. It was peculiar because they didn't seem to expect him but rather were told to rush into this room if the door locked itself, in other words it was a trap.

He didn't break a sweat, simply dancing around the undead he evaded the swipes of all their halberds with all manner of acrobatics, all the while attacking them during opportune moments. In no time at all the entire three complements was reduced on one soldier.

This was when he was surprised, he finally heard a voice in this place since leaving the hunting lodge a few hours prior.

"Who are you, to be able to defeat eight Ghoul Guards in combat and not suffer any injury?"

The voice seemed like some sort of hallowed croak, almost as if the guardsman was simply using the body's deteriorated voice-box as a foreign medium of communication than as a natural instinct.

Adam smiled, if they could talk then they could solve a problem of his. Namely, where the Countess was inside this tower. Now, if he learnt anything in this place, it was to be as direct as possible.

"Where is the Countess?"

The Ghoul Guard looked at him incredulously. It seemed that it wouldn't be as easy as that.

Then, the ghoul began laughing uproariously, his hallowed laughter echoing down the halls of the keep.

"Ahahaha, You!" He pointed at Adam while almost doubling over from laughing so hard.

"You, you want to find the Countess?" He was almost falling over by this point.

It took a moment before he composed himself and spoke in a serious tone.

"Nobody finds the Countess, the Countess finds you."

Well, that was helpful. Although perhaps he could skirt around the question?

"Where is the throne room?"

"The top of the keep."

Good, Adam liked that, short and concise. Now he could get to work silencing this guardsman and making an escapade from the dozens of guardsmen which were no doubt making their way here.

The guardsman sighed, almost as if he guessed Adam's thoughts.

"You are a funny little human, you my think you tricked me, but you are never leaving this room alive."

"What makes you say that?"

"My title from maxing out a 1st tier class called 'Head Guardsman, Royal Halberdier'"

Oh, that probably would be enough to stop him. Albeit momentarily.

The Royal Halberdier took a single step, perfectly synchronising it with a sweep of his halberd to create a flawless strike. This level of technique with a halberd would have taken an eternity of continuous practice within live battlefields to polish and improve upon.

It was too bad that the nature of the halberd was meant as a defensive weapon, rather than an offensive one. The Royal Halberdier's skill with the halberd almost bridged that gap, almost.

Adam used shadow footwork and essentially teleported behind the guardsman, only to face a horizontal sweep of the blade.

Adam evaded it by vaulting over the incoming blade and jumping atop the Royal Halberdier's head with a flying kick, knocking him to the ground and snapping the bascinet off, revealing a strangely intact human face.

It was just like a regular human apart from the extremely pale tone of his skin, a pale tone which would have made him a successful model in Australia.

It was too bad that this lovely face would be exposed to his fists.

He advanced on top of him and kicked his halberd away, then he gathered the shadows in the room into his fist.

The Royal Halberdier was struggling and thrashing the whole time, demonstrating strength that would have torn apart a lesser man, but held futilely against Adam rigid body.

Then, he punched out towards the Royal Halberdier's mouth once he felt that the shadows had sufficiently gathered around his clenched fist.

In the last split moment, the Guardsman did something unexpected and opened his mouth out wide, allowing two razor sharp fangs to extend outwards from his gums in a fashion similar to snakes.

The two fangs tore through the white wrapping and the calloused skin around his hand like a hot knife through butter, digging deep into his knuckles.

It was painful, but the strike had already been unleashed and little could be done to change it as it continued into the man's face.

At first, it tore off the fangs which had attached themselves to his hands, then it broke the jaw and thrashed the throat. Afterwards it smashed the skull and ultimately left a bloody smear on the floor in place of this man's head.

*You have been afflicted with [Lesser Vampirism]*

Or should he say Vampire.

He quickly removed the two fangs and endured the pain after bandaging it with the Vampire's doublet.

Then he turned to look at the effects of Vampirism.

*Vampirism*

*A disease which slowly afflicts the body and mind of the victim, turning them into bloodsucking nightspawn who grow stronger by drinking from the flesh of their kin.*

*Initial Effects;*

*-Aversion to Sunlight*

*-Weakness to Wood*

*-Weakness to Silver*

*-Weakness to Fire*

*-Recuperative effect from drinking blood*

*-Possibility to Cure Vampirism*

*Effects at Final Stage*

*-Death by Sunlight*

*-Strength in the Night*

*-Critical Weakness to Wood*

*-Critical Weakness to Silver*

*-Critical Weakness to Fire*

*-Aversion to objects in the shape of a cross with one side slightly longer than the other for no explicable reason whatsoever.*

*-Inflicting Submissive Vampirism*

*-Restore Health, Mana and Stamina from drinking blood*

*-Only fresh blood sates hunger and thirst*

*-Supernatural Physical Abilities*

*-Increased Magical Skills in Blood Magic, Death Magic, Black Magic, Shadow Magic, Ice Magic, Mind Magic.*

Hmmmm

This seemed like a problem, death by sunlight was a problem.

He would need to get this sorted at some point, but now he had an updated character screen

Name: Adam

Race: Vampire

Alignment: True Neutral

Strength: 12

Dexterity: 15

Constitution: 11

Wisdom: 12

Intelligence: 13

Charisma: 6

He would definitely need to get this sorted.

Anyways, it didn't seem like much of a setback for now, considering that this was apparently an abode made for vampires. The lack of daylighting in the architecture was explained by this, although there were a number of wooden and silver objects inside the castle suggesting that it was only put under Vampiric proprietorship only recently.

Putting these thoughts aside, Adam turned to look towards the task at hand. Bandaging his injured hand, he stood up and started heading towards the central staircase.

*Level Up*

*Level 7 Shadow Monk*

*+5 Mana and +4 HP*

It looked like the experience from killing that vampire was sufficient to pull him to the next level, giving him some much appreciated mana and hp.

It was timely considering that he was about to confront the countess, a mysterious individual in which he was cultivating an increasingly rising suspicion that they might be a vampire.

'Well, he would know soon enough.' Adam thought to himself as he stood in front of a double set of heavy oaken doors. Inwardly thinking that oaken doors must be very popular in this region, Adam used shadow form to slip through the bottom gap in the doors.

He was already so close to his goal. He was not going to give away his presence by merely opening a door.

Behind the doors was a luxurious living room. The wallpaper was a dull shade of red, showcasing a great amount of wealth alongside a hidden promise of danger. Masterfully crafted furniture was made from sable wood and ebony, atop which were displayed myriad curiosities in which one could indulge their eyes upon. These curiosities ranged from simple baubles and trinkets to occult candles and human skulls.

The entire room gave off a feel similar to that of a madman, albeit a classy and wealthy one.

The owner of this room was currently seated upon a red satin couch, letting her body sink into the malleable texture of the couch. The short wedding gown, which was also composed of satin, lay loosely on her delicate frame and the white locks of her hair hung loosely by the side of the couch.

This person must be the Countess.

*Quest Updated*

*Kill the Countess T-T*

*Reward:*

*Title: Killer of the Noblesse*

What was this change? The system actually gave him an accurate directive in this quest and gave him a reward of substance, not just empty promises that arose as consequences of the quest?

Adam paused beside the door, something was amiss.

It wasn't just the strange normalcy of the system, but rather something in the room.

He couldn't quite place what it was, the Countess was relaxing upon the couch in oblivion of her imminent demise, the guards outside the door had been dispatched and the furniture within the room was...

The furniture

Vampires were meant to elicit some sort of weakness in front of wood, and yet this room was so full of it. In fact, he had just gone through a wooden door in shadow form. He couldn't tell if shadow form inhibited the effects of a weakness but there should have been at least some reaction.

As soon as Adam starting seeing the flaws, discrepancies and queerness in the room the space around him seemed to warp. It wasn't quite like entering and leaving his subconscious space but more like someone tearing space as one would tear wallpaper, revealing the bare wall beneath.

The room was quite different now. The main structure was maintained however the wallpaper was replaced with a sheening red glass which covered every part of the floor, walls and ceiling. The entire room was bare in exception of the Countess standing in the centre alongside three slumped figures and a huge object. The slumped figures appeared to be the stronger one's amongst the trainees. It was too bad that they weren't strong enough to face the Countess.

The Countess didn't seem to be aware of his presence, busily doing something with the trainees. A pool of blood was forming at her feet and she tore apart the limbs of the corpses and attached them to a... Mass of flesh.

There was no other way to describe such an object, it appeared to be composed entirely of blood and limbs from many different creatures and people, held together by shoddy stitching across the leathery seams of the skin. It stood three metres tall and appeared extremely monstrous. The only part of the thing that wasn't made of flesh and blood was a small picture frame which was slotted into the face of a human. The silvery frame contained a detailed painting of a dashing young man in noble clothing which appeared to be very aged, at least centuries in age.

The Countess was humming a merry tune as she worked on this. Adam couldn't make out her face beneath the locks of white hair that flooded past her visage, however he could tell that she was innocently smiling.

The whole situation was extremely strange to Adam, however he had grown used to gore and wasn't too affected by it. As a result he quickly took stock of the situation and analysed what he could use as an advantage.

Doubtlessly, the Countess must be a fully fledged vampire, therefore she must possess supernatural strength at this moment. Especially so considering that it was currently night time and that the vampire from before appeared to be subservient to her, indicating a huge disparity in strength and/or position.

It also meant that her weaknesses to wood, silver and sunlight would be exponentially strengthened. However, this wasn't an advantage that he could utilise considering that the room was devoid of any of those materials.

He also noticed that the material which composed the room wasn't just glass, it appeared to be some sort of crystal of a much denser nature and that the red hue around the room was caused by the residual blood which seeped into the crystal.

Taking all of this into consideration, Adam realised that a prolonged engagement with the Countess wouldn't be to his advantage, and thus used shadow form once more to creep alongside the bloody streaks on the floor which provided some small measure of shade from the ambient lighting of the crystal.

He carefully made his way until he was directly behind her. Then he reached out and clawed through her heart. Adam's hand met virtually no resistance as it directly penetrated through to the other side and clutched her heart within the grasping claw.

Obviously, he wasn't about to make the same mistake he made with the ghoul and assume that she was dead. Thereby he formed a second claw with his other hand and tore the vertebrae out from under the head. Only then did he let the corpse drop down to the ground.

Except it didn't drop to the ground, it splashed to the ground. Adam saw the body of the Countess transform into a massive pile of blood right in front of him, slipping around his clenched fists and arms.

Then, some distance away from him it gathered and reformed into the Countess once more. When the blood gathered, the white dress around her reformed along with her, exempt of the blood stains which had littered it priorly. The hair was now neatly plaited backwards instead of hanging over her face, thus letting Adam see her face for the first time. It wasn't merely a shade of white, it was inhumanly white. Her eyes were crimson red, the playful visage of a predator displayed within them. The corner of her lip was ever so slightly curled upwards.

"My, oh my. You sure seem to be an interesting toy." Her lips smacked together when she pronounced the word 'interesting', accentuating the 'i' sound in the beginning in a sadistic manner.

"Walking through my halls unseen and uninvited, you sure surprised me." The tone of her voice expressed genuine praise, honestly shocked that she had been surprised.

"Seeing through the illusions within my illusion room, you are surely not like my other dolls." She gestured to the mutilated corpses in the room.

At this moment her grin crested to it's biggest, showing a manic smile and a sudden flash of movement.

"Which is why you will make for a very interesting toy to play with!"