Silence took up the entire building. There were two dozen magisters seated around the central room, each in clear view of a corner that held a massive mirror. Except it was not facing them, rather, it was turned towards the corner explicitly so no one could accidentally look into it. Except for a single woman strapped into a metal chair, contraption keeping her head locked in place and eyes open so that she was forced to stared directly at her reflection.

In other words, a human sacrifice and a trap. Rather callus of the Order, though Reginald cared little for it. He was at the edges of the room and got to work in cracking the mental defences. Because this was more than just one or two. He would have to bypass a dozen at once if he wanted them to not raise an alarm.

Not that it would be too difficult. He just wanted to really be careful. It wouldn’t do for him to fumble things so close to the last step, especially since everything had been going rather well so far. Why, if he didn’t know better he might even dare hope that things would work out as he had schemed.

Cautiously Reginald probed and then broke through the protections of the many magisters, making them incapable of perceiving what he was about to do. It was his favourite trick for a reason. Then he walked towards a familiar figure. Artorias sat there, just like his brothers in arms not reacting at all to the approaching footsteps. Reginald reached him and raised the man’s wrist. Then slashed it.

Ever more symbolism. Layers upon layers would help what Reginald had in mind. And betrayal was a potent thing. He felt at that moment the strings of the contract clutch at him. The magister had, after all, hired him to assist in a hunt and what he was doing now was a step beyond even the most forgiving interpretation of their agreement. But then, it had been sealed under false pretences, signed with a false name; Not to mention not the strongest magics were woven to craft it. And what was Reginald but a breaker of promises?

Everything around him shook, swallowing Reginald in a wave of vertigo. The agreement’s magic tried to claw at his very essence for daring to deny it. But just like most magic, it relied on both symbolism and power. It took the weight of Artorias to empower itself and had to deduct the weight that Reginald’s actions had left upon the word.

Vampires, as most magical creatures, tended to keep promises. There was something about the nature of magic that compelled them to. But there were exceptions. The magic stared at Reginald through the glasses of utter alacrity and saw him for what he was: The man who had once betrayed everyone who had ever trusted him for power. Perhaps the greatest traitor of all time. The men who had stopped at no lie for his goals. Then the contract withered and died for it no longer held any more purchase over him.

Especially because of the sheer difference in raw power. Mythology was only half the battle. Reginald shook off the unpleasant feeling and felt the red line healing where the contract had failed to decapitate him. That would have been an annoying injury to recover from.

Now thought, everything was ready. Blood was pooling on the ground as it surged from Artorias wrist. More and more by the second. When it was a small pond Reginald made the magister stand up and clutch their bleeding hand. No need to spill any more. Quickly, the blood on the ground settled and Artorias was made to lean over. Look into it. See their own reflection…

Before a split second had passed, three crimson dots distinctly shone even on the vermillion liquid. Reginald almost immediately kicked the pond with his boot, scattering it. Without enough of it in one place, blood would not make a large enough reflection to hide in. That instant of a sanguine mirror has been long enough though. As the creature was forced out of the broken reflection the magister was already dropping down to the ground, their soul devoured despite the protective trinkets which were beginning to glow as to warn of their breaching.

Even though the Reaver attempted to flee Reginald was faster this time around. He actually struck with all his speed, grabbing it by the scales of its neck. In the same moment he funelled power into every restrictive stolen trick he knew that might prevent it from jumping to another reflection somewhere nearby, already working on its well defended mind as to subtly prevent it from even making an attempt. His HUNGER already screamed at him but he could not afford to sate it yet. Reginald needed to confirm some things, not to mention the timing was not quite right yet.

For that reason Reginald spoke instead. “So, will you be willing to converse this time around? I am curious about you, brother,” he stared those three eyes down. They tried to writhe and get free. They could not.

“Oh, isss that what… we are?” It replied with guttural and hissy voice. It could be acting or perhaps just unused to speaking. At least it understood language. Reginald would have assumed nothing less given how many local’s souls it had eaten. And the descendants of hunger were good at learning from their food.

“Rationally, we have to be,” Reginald nodded. “When the Hungerer died at the hand of Sun-Resplendet two species had emerged from its divine carrion. Ghouls were its Bone and Flesh; Vampires the Blood and Mind. It is such a widely known factoid of mythology that no one even questions it. And yet I have always wondered… What of the Hungerer’s soul? Why do we not possess a reflection? And you… your kind matches our weaknesses too closely and fill in the gaps. Just as I would call a ghoul kin, so are you.”

“Even ssso, you hold me in your clutch,” it complained. Reginald tried to read its eyes but the expression was too alien to interpret. Not surprising considering he had not known about reavers existing in the first place just a few days ago. Either way, it didn’t really matter. The Reaver would be stalling for time. With Artorias’s death its ritual had been completed, now it was waiting for it to take effect. Which meant it would keep talking.

“Tell me you would be so gentle were our positions reversed,” Reginald grinned savagely. “I quite remember your rather rude attack against my very soul.”

“How could I not when I assssumed you were working for the Order?” it spat angrily. “They have imprissssoned me for so long. Had you not clearly betrayed them I would brook no wordsss with you.”

“Even so, you have given insult for which I would kill most,” Reginald grinned, playing up the arrogance. He had no idea where it had crawled out of but did not believe for a second that it was good enough at reading faces to see through his acting. “But you… you pique curiosity. That ritual you have failed… I felt some resonance with it. Who have taught it to you?”

“Not taught!” It hissed back as if insulted. Reginald gently tried to direct its mind towards honesty though that was a bit difficult. Every species' mind was structured differently, not to mention individual variation. That was an issue with a species he was seeing for the first time rather than having centuries of cumulative experience. “It is my heritage. I have been born with it.”

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“Innate knowledge,” Reginald smothered the smile that would have emerged on his lips and instead put on a frown. He was trying to interpret its inner thoughts but he was as confident as he probably could be that the Reaver has spoken the truth. “Oh, what a relief it is to know that it is indeed something inborn.”

“How would that be sso reliving?” it, probably, frowned. The hisses were already getting less distinct as the Reaver was getting used to speech.

“A simple reason for that, but it requires a tale to understand,” Reginald nodded. He felt the power gathering to this place but it was still too early. “But perhaps you would tell me yours first. You see, I am incredibly interested in the story of how a whole species of my kin had remained concealed for so long."

“Very well, though it is no gloriouss thing,” it said. “I scarcely remember my early years, they are a swirl of delirium. In the rare momentss of coherence I remember the red and grey walls of a tomb. You see, I was so weak and hungry that I could not exist outside a reflection like I can now. But there was so little to eat. Merely animals most of the time, dull and meagre morsels. They were not enough to sate me, just barely sustain me. They was everything I knew for a long time.”

“Everything changed when humans began to first wander into those labyrinthine caves. Eating their souls began to give me more… alacrity. Capacity for thought and understanding. I became better at hunting, ate more, grew. Thought. And I crept in those caves for a long time. Then one-day calamity struck. Ash and molten rock poured down the labyrinth and killed everything. I hid in a crystal’s reflection unable to flee. Then I grew weaker and weaker as hunger gnawed at me. Until one day the Order found me and imprisoned me. Threated me like a beast to experiment on. At first I perhaps acted like such driven by famine but when I regained coherence I played the role as I schemed my successful escape. That is why I was wary of you at first, brother.”

“But still, you leave out the most important part,” Reginald shook his head after the reaver finished their story. “You speak of the agony of starvation which I sympathise fully with yet you neglect to speak of the ECSTASY.

“Ecstasy?” it asked, confused.

“Ecstasy like no other,” Reginald nodded. “I see the timeline. I think I even know where the caves you have stalked lie. But what I am really curious about is how it felt when you devoured your sister."

“Now you are speaking nonsense,” it squirmed and flinched but Reginald held the Reaver tight. “I had always been alone.”

“Why, perhaps I would even believe you if I didn’t know better,” Reginald chuckled. “But that ritual you have drawn across the city with a chalk of death? I know it. I recognised it instantly. Because until a few nights ago I had thought only four beings had ever been born knowing it. A bit of inheritance. But your existence had made me reconsider."

And now the Reaver was realising the implication of what Reginald was saying. Fear began to gnaw at it along with the realisation that the ritual it had been stalling for had long been exposed.

“I have always known a simple truth: There had been four Firstborn of the Hungerer,” Reginald spoke and felt his words almost resonate with the word. That drove him all the more to speak them. For tonight may be the turn of an era. “Two Brothers, Two Sisters. Two Vampires, Two Ghouls. We have crawled out of a broken carcass of a god that knew only hunger and forced to live with a curses imparted by the nature of their death. We huddled, we learned, we ate. Us four siblings,” he smiled.

“To think that we had missed two more kin in those early days,” Reginald shook his head. “You and your… sister? I cannot tell which you are. Anyway, you and your sibling must have seeped into the earth beneath to hide from the merciless sun. There you tried to survive together at least for a while. But it was always there, at the back of your head, that intrusive thought: What could possibly taste better than my one and only equal?”

“I just wanted to live…” it quivered. There was a disgusting aftertaste of guilt flowing through its mind. "One day, the hunger room over. I couldn't stop it."

“No need to be ashamed, brother,” Reginald frowned. “Indulgence is our nature. What descendant of the Hungerer does not dream of feasting? Of finally sating that gnawing starvation, if only for few moments at a time."

“G-gods, you are mad,” the reaver spoke. “I have been tempted at times but I never truly gave into the hunger. When I eat it is as means to an end. But you… you relish in it, don’t you? What I had done I had out of desperation. You would devour those closest to you out of pleasure. If the divine yet live, I pray they would stop a miscreant like you.”

“Faith is misplaced, brother, the gods are long dead,” Reginald grinned. “Invoke their names as you wish, a carcass hears no prayer. They slaughtered each other until none remained. I know, I had watched. Risked my life to claim little drops of godblood as their battles reshaped continents. Until they died and their descendants arose from those broken cadavers.”

“Or you could be wrong,” it refused to accept the irrefutable.

“Readily accepting of human ideals,” Reginald shook his head. “You are as old as me yet so juvenile in the mind. Just like my sister, you fight against what you are rather than embrace it. How disappointing. I had hoped for someone truly like me."

“That wouldn’t have changed anything anyway,” it stared at Reginald. It was trying to move. Use magic, or escape into a reflection, or any other trick it might have picked up. None of them would work.

He might be as old as Reginald but there was a fundamental difference: Nourishment. Reginald had hunted. Pushed himself for millennia to achieve his power. The Reaver had not. It had sustained itself on unfortunate lost things unable to resist and was to this day malnourished. Reginald used to feed on prey that he had feared. Their strength was not even similar.

“I suppose not. But it would have been more pleasant had we been truly kindred,” Reginald said. It was close. The ritual's power was accumulating. Soon it would be time.

“So, this is how it ends?” the Reaver was beginning to give up. How… pathetic. To give up on struggle while it still drew breath. “It was all for nothing?

“Certainly,” Reginald confirmed. “Do you wish for at least your name to be remembered?”

“Horra,” it said with important hatred. "And my sister was Leskla. May she come to haunt you like she had me.”

And then, the right moment came. Reginald felt it like a wind of fate, he bit down. The ritual had been gathering upon Horra when, in the last moment, Reginald stole it. He devoured it like he would any prey. He took into himself everything they were. From their knowledge and skill; through their powers, innate or nurtured; to their very place in fate.

Now he was reaping what he had sown. He had feasted at the first point of the ritual and the last. He had acted in accordance with the rune that formed it. And the rune was identical to the one that belonged to him. An inheritance. A rune… simple, because it was primordial - predated complexities of innovation. A pattern that had belonged to the Hungerer itself - it DEVOURED. And that meant power...

Coursing through him like a river. The whole town was at war, so much blood was spilt. A chunk of it was drunk by Reginald’s kin but most? Most washed the streets, drained into the sewers, or failed to bleed out of mortal wounds. And not just blood. The children of the Hungerer took from their prey, even from each other. And although it was to a lesser degree than his greatest innate talents, so too would Reginald be able to take the power dwelling in the Flesh and, now, Soul.

Even more than that, it was just the beginning. The ritual was meant to DEVOUR every drop of essence it could reach. Why then would it be restrained to just essence spilt? It was waiting. Anticipating when it would be fully unleashed. Then it would try to drain the living dry as well. 'Reginald' - though he would not use that name much longer - smiled and trembled in fear. He had done everything he could. It was time to see whether it would be enough.