The two last trails led to the same property that was, you guessed it, an estate with a mansion on it. This one had some kind of masquerade ball going on that night. Buying some fancy clothes and masks for both himself and Cole, they made their way towards the entrance. They were stopped at the gate.
“Invitation” the guard said.
The vampiric bunny made his eyes glow. “Hope the food’s good, haven’t eaten in a while.”
He was really hoping bluffing his way through would work.
“Apologies young master, and this gentleman is?”
“My servant and bodyguard” he replied smoothly.
“Very well, enjoy your night.”
The rabbit just nodded before striding forward like he owned the place. The white with sky blue lining formal wear he adorned was complemented by the full black ensemble that his ‘guard’ wore. Entering the party was like entering a nightmare. Slaves in chains walked around while balancing champagne glasses, or something similar. A guest would then decide whether they wanted a drink or an appetizer. Along the wall more chained people watched on in terror. These ones had entire bite chunks missing from their arms or legs.
Lyle. They were looking for Lyle. He couldn’t react. His maker had been [LEVEL 84]. Her actions had proven that even she was scared of some people. That meant he should be terrified. Get in. Get out. Get stronger. He’d be back to test the waters again once he reached [LEVEL 100]. For now, he couldn’t help them. Once again, he was helpless. He continued to follow the closest trail into another ballroom across the hall. This one was just as packed and nightmarish.
There. The trace was close. His gaze ended up on one of the serving appetisers in chains. But… but wasn’t that a vampire’s essence? The storm rabbit was confused enough to use [IDENTIFY].
Humanoid – [HUMAN BLOOD SLAVE] – [LEVEL 14]
The race. The race was changed. But he wasn’t a vampire. Cole leaned over and whispered close to his ear despite all the noise “That’s Lyle.”
One down, one to go. “We’ll be back for him” he replied in the same whisper “I think another one of your brothers is somewhere here.”
The wight’s eyes widened in surprise before he nodded gravely. The other trail led them towards a door off from a secluded hallway far away from the main event. There was a small hall of stairs leading down to it. Luckily, it wasn’t guarded. He focused his hearing to find that most of the guards had gone outside to deal with the fire encroaching on the property. Apparently, the wind had blown it this way from a nearby estate. Weird, so weird.
Smirking to himself the rabbit opened the door which led to, surprise, surprise, an underground prison. It was just one enormous brick room with lots and lots of chains. There were a little over one hundred people in the chains. Sixteen people were vampires. The rest of them were dead. Recalling his own transformation, he knew what had occurred down here. His maker had told him the ratio. Usually, ninety percent of forced evolutions into vampirism didn’t take. Looking around, slightly more than expected had survived. Every living face looked at him in dread. Then one of the faces caught sight of the [DEEPSOUL WIGHT]. “Cole!” the face croaked in disbelief.
Oof. That scratchiness and dryness when first regaining consciousness really sucked. The vampiric rabbit remembered it well.
“Finley!” Cole gasped back in joy while running over to hug what [ROGER] expected to be the oldest sold sibling.
He thought about warning the wight, but the low levelled vamp wouldn’t be able to do any real damage to the undead even if his hunger would make him try. As expected, Finley lunged for his brother’s throat. A few seconds later he sat back in disgust, though his hunger still made him gulp down what he had already swallowed.
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“You taste gross” was the older brother’s critique.
“Gee thanks, and your sweat smells like flowers and sunshine” came the sarcastic reply.
Smiling, the rabbit came to a decision and headed upstairs. After grabbing Lyle and some of the humans that were enjoying the masquerade’s tortuous entertainment. He dragged them past guests with confused looks and re-entered the prison without much trouble. Tossing out a human for each vampire he went back out to grab a group of elves that also seemed to be living the high life. He didn’t want to cause another scene though, so he disguised himself with [MIRAGE] and then charmed them to follow him. With every vampire freed and fed, leaving sixteen extra bodies on the floor, he gave a command. “Everyone hold hands.”
They all just stared at him. “I’m going to teleport us all out of here so everyone hold hands.”
They complied. He had to do them all at once and he had to do it now. He sensed that if he tried to leave and come back, many powerful beings would sense the magic and rush there to catch him. The extra stats would help, but would it be enough? Only one way to find out. The sovereign closed his eyes and concentrated. A clap of power. The world shifted. He opened his eyes to find they were all present just outside the wall. Happy with the results, his body decided to embarrass him again. His unconscious state was much longer this time.
*****
A few hours later he woke up with Chester's face hovering a foot from his. “Finally awake!” he shouted making the poor bunny’s head hurt.
“Shhhhhh” he whispered as softly as possible.
As the young man whispered “Sorry”, there were also calls of “Finally!” and “Can we get going now.”
Sitting up, he found himself staring at a bunch of undead just sitting outside the cave. Some of the vampires had left to go find family, but most had stayed. Eleven in total. After sussing out the situation, the bunny began leading them directly home according to [GUIDANCE]. Lots of his skills had been levelling recently.
Not far into the journey the malnourished humans had to piggyback. This actually made it so they could pick up the pace of the journey. Just three days after setting out, they finally reached the entrance to the dungeon. He assumed it would take longer, but they made good time. Upon walking up to the entrance, the wraith stilled and spoke in its ethereal voice. “Young Lord, this be tha secrit [UNIQUE] grad dungeon tha me homelan uses fa trainin’ and levellin’ up. It be extremely hard ta find. The magic emanatin’ from it can sen someone walkin’ in circles fa weeks.”
“You don’t say.” the rabbit turned to respond inquisitively “What are grades?”
The lich, Caspian, answered, “There are ten grades that apply to everything. From equipment to dungeons to living beings. Grades are revealed once an identifying or appraising skill had reached [LEVEL 10]. [LESSER] grade is marked with red in tags. [AVERAGE] is orange. [SPECIAL], yellow. [EPIC], green. [RARE], blue. [UNIQUE], purple. [LEGENDARY] is brown. [MYTHICAL], black. [TRANSCENDENT], white and [CELESTIAL] is grey. The higher the grade of a dungeon, the stronger and more elaborate the evolutions are for the monsters inside. At least for the ones that survive anyway.”
The [VAMPIRIC SOVEREIGN STORM DUAL HORNED RABBIT] nodded in sadness while thinking of his dead father and siblings.
“What about levels? You said levels are graded?”
“I’m not sure about the highest grades. But [LESSER] is levels up to ten. [AVERAGE] is up to fifty. [SPECIAL] is up to one hundred. [EPIC] is up to five hundred. and [RARE] is up to one thousand. After entering [UNIQUE] grade, you’re granted the [EVERLASTING] status by The Nexus and can become a [PATRON]. I’m not sure after that. I would assume that [LEGENDARY] grade would start after [LEVEL 5000] and go up to [LEVEL 10 000], but I just don’t know.”
“The Nexus?” the bunny questioned.
“You don’t even know that much?” the spiteful undead woman asked accusingly “What kind of under a rock, naïve leader are you?! The Nexus is the spell cast eons ago to assist in progression. It gives us the status screens and lets us level. There are many stories but basically some strong mage on a backwater planet caste a super complex spell to help their entire world progress. The spell ended up leaking and spreading to the entire galaxy the planet was in. Anyone who could travel through space at the time and passed through caught a “Nexus Virus” and spread the spell to other galaxies. Others heard of this and decided to try casting planetary progression spells of their own, which again, spread like a virus. Eventually the spells spread so far, they ended up colliding and there was a great glitch called ‘The Day of the Nexus’ War’. After that the Nexus just incorporated any new progression spells into itself. There are rumours that even to this day, old monsters that have reached [TRANSCENDENT] or [CELESTIAL] can poke around with the Nexus spell itself and make alterations. No one has managed to dispel the Nexus, and there have been many tries.”
The storm rabbit gaped at the information. That had been quite the info dump. He wasn’t really sure how to respond.
“Wow. Okay. You guys wait here. I’m just going to let my family know of the situation.”
With that, he turned back into his rabbit form and re-entered the dungeon.
*DING*
You have entered the [UNIQUE] grade dungeon [FANTASTICAL FAUNA]