It didn’t take Marie long to decide that her hunger was outweighing her desire to stalk these goblins until the perfect opening occurred. The gnawing in her center seemed like it was going to be more than a little annoyance if she didn’t silence it soon. That being the case, she leaped to a tree slightly ahead of the path the goblins were taking and waited.

After they had slightly passed by her post, she dropped skillfully to the ground behind them and drew her longsword. She was about to strike down the one in the rear when a thought struck her.

Why am I killing this goblin? I’m not attacking them as an adventurer, looking to take them down as quickly as possible so I can take their stuff. I’m looking to quench this thirst with the blood in them, not spill it all over the ground.

She put the longsword back in its scabbard, and rolled her shoulders to loosen them. Using all of that enhanced agility she leaped forward and grabbed the rear goblin from behind. Her left arm went around his throat, and she choked off its voice by squeezing hard as she yanked its body back into the brush beside the game trail. She knew she had only moments before the goblins noticed their missing companion and so she ran straight away from them at top speed, choking the goblin the whole while so that nothing but ragged gasps could get out.

After a few minutes of running she knew that there was very little chance the goblins could catch her, or even find the spot where she was, so she stopped. She laid the goblin down on the ground and took a look at him, noticing that he seemed quite young but still an adult. He was breathing raggedly, and was unconscious, but that might be for the best.

“Well, let’s see how this goes. Can I maintain enough control to just fulfill my hunger, or do I have to drain him?”

Marie took a deep breath to calm herself, and immediately started coughing out chunks of blood residue again. Old habits were hard to break. After she finished her little fit, she knelt down and leaned over the goblin, open her mouth to reveal the mouthful of sharp teeth she now had. She closed her eyes, cursing the lengths fate had driven her to, and bit into the goblin’s throbbing neck.

The sensation was indescribable, but it was better than all the sex, drugs and alcohol Marie had had in her life put together. As the scion of a wealthy family, she had had a lot of those, and of the best types, her whole life. The silky, hot fluid gushing from the goblin was pouring down her throat and filling a hole she didn’t even know she had in her. The hair all over her body was standing, and she could feel her lips go numb and her scalp start tingling.

And then the vampire was swept away by the river of ecstasy, and her whole world narrowed down to the pulse as she swallowed each mouthful of blood. It went on and on, time seemed to stop and the heavens stood witness to this grotesque display that somehow evoked something atavistic.

Once the flood of blood ended, reality reasserted itself. Marie looked down to see the goblin lying there, dead with his eyes staring without seeing at the stars that witnessed his murder, body shrunken and collapsing in on itself, and all she felt was the hunger for more. The wonderful heat and energy that the blood brought to her body was already fading, and she needed her next meal.

Okay, we are clearly in worst-case-scenario-junkie territory here. That was…amazing, and I am going to have to keep doing it to live. I am not going to be able to stop, it’s like someone told you that if you didn’t have an orgasm every day you would die, who is going to not do it? Maybe I can learn to leave them alive though, even just as a feeding mechanism. Give a man a fish, and all that jazz.

~SYSTEM~

NEW DATA ACQUIRED!

[BLOOD] ADDED AS A NEW RESOURCE TYPE.

HOST IS CURRENTLY AT 76% MAX CAPACITY OF [BLOOD].

TO AVOID DEGRADATION OF HOST’S CONDITION PLEASE ACQUIRE MORE [BLOOD].

“And now my AI is telling me to go get more blood. Great. Clearly I am going to have to be my own voice of morality, because in this case the voice of reason differs from it.”

Marie moved back towards the direction of the two remaining goblins she knew about. She quickly found them, and she could tell that they were spooked. They were continually watching behind them, and chattering to each other in their goblin language. They were also headed back the way they had originally come, having obviously abandoned their hunt. Marie couldn’t blame them, their friend was missing and he was never coming back.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Instead of pouncing on them, the vampire followed them to find where they had come from. She climbed up another tree and kept up with them, always making sure to conceal herself amongst the foliage. It took them almost an hour to get to their home base, a small group of low huts with mud walls and thatched roofs.

The little village was surrounded by a makeshift fence of sharpened wooden stakes that had been lashed together. A fire burned in the middle of the settlement, casting weak light on the huts and revealing a few old goblins sitting around it.

~SYSTEM~

SYSTEM HAS DETECTED THAT YOU HAVE GAINED SOME PROFICIENCY WITH MOVING SILENTLY AND AVOIDING DETECTION. CREATING NEW SKILL ‘STEALTH I’ AND APPENDING TO PROFILE.

The AI was continuing to surprise Marie, and it was actually a little bit scary. As far as she knew, the AI would not normally do such things as adding a new skill on its own initiative. It had a list of pre-loaded, pre-configured skills that it tracked and it based her proficiency against that data. This whole situation seemed to have kick-started something in the AI. It was one more reason not to try and return to Earth at the moment, some military contractor would get approval to remove her brain for testing and that would be the end of her.

Now that she knew where this goblin village was, it was time to retreat to her tree-fort, but not before satiating her hunger. Just as the two goblins were reaching the edge of the camp, and the light being cast from the fire within, she struck. Marie kicked one of the goblins in the back, sending his body rag-doll flying into the village and causing a hullabaloo. The other goblin turned on her and tried to thrust out with his spear.

Marie felt herself smiling as she grabbed the spear shafted in her left hand and snapped it effortlessly. The goblin’s face paled considerably and he screamed in fear, dropping the remains of the spear. Marie lashed out with a jab at the goblin’s jaw and there was a sick crack as it shattered. The green-skinned creature dropped to the ground bonelessly as unconsciousness overcame him.

The goblins in the village had now realized that something was up, and there was loud shouting happening and the sound of goblins organizing. Marie paid it no mind as she grabbed up the limp goblin and threw him over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, without a backward glance she ran back out in to the night and started seeing how far she could run at her top speed without tiring. It was a long way because she got to her tree-abode without having to slow down.

She wasn’t sure how long until the sun came up, but she wasn’t going to take any chances. Marie shoved the still-unconscious goblin in to the gap in the tree trunk and then pushed herself through as well. It almost seemed a little tighter than when she had come out before, but with her great strength she was able to bend the opening slightly to accommodate her.

Once inside, she looked down at the goblin for a moment before picking him up and biting into the side of his neck. She tried to just nip it to get the blood flowing, to see if she could feed without killing.

The sweet wine started spilling into her mouth and she could feel her body filling with the heat and life being drawn from the goblin’s blood. Soon it devolved into a juice box situation where she had sucked him dry, he was lying crumpled on the floor, and her mouth was stained red.

***

“What in the Nine Hells was that? That thing grabbed Nok and ran off in to the dark with him!”

“Nog, what did you bring to the village? You foolish child!”

“We’re doomed, the forest is haunted!”

“The gods have forsaken us, we need to go make a sacrifice right now!”

“Why is everyone screaming? I was having a really good sleep!”

The village was boiling over, all the huts showed lanterns lit and most of the residents were standing around in groups outside yelling at each other. The last remaining goblin from the trio, the one who got kicked into the village, was especially under fire as a group of elders stood around him screaming.

“SHUT UP!” A goblin wearing only a breechclout stepped in to the central square and bellowed, his eyes roving the crowd to see if anyone would disobey. All of the other goblins dropped their eyes to the ground, and the smart ones shut up immediately. Anyone who wasn’t smart had to be shut up a few seconds later by the hands of those standing around them.

“That’s better, now I want to know what’s going on here. Nog, get over here and if you don’t wanna spend the next week at the bottom of the bog you’ll be honest and say everything the way it happened.” The goblin leader beckoned the young warrior over with a peremptory motion.

“Chief, I was hunting with Nof and Nok and we were tracking a deer through the woods when Nof disappeared without a sound. We weren’t sure what was happening except we found some boot tracks on the ground but whoever it was ran away way too fast for us to catch. We were worried because whoever it was could grab him like that so we headed home to see if we could get some help getting him back. Right as we got to the village I got kicked in the back, and the next thing I know everyone is yelling about someone stealing Nok.”

The young goblin kept his eyes firmly focused on the Chief’s toes, not daring to look up. He wondered how the Chief could even walk with that many ingrown nails.

The Chief nodded as he listened, hearing the truth in the young goblin’s voice. “Did anyone see who grabbed Nok? What did they look like?”

An old, withered goblin raised his hand and stepped forward. “I saw, Chief, I was headed out to take a pee in the woods. It looked like an elf woman, pointed ears, pale skin, black hair. The thing is though that she had red eyes, and it looked like a mouthful of pointy teeth…”

The old goblin tossed the Chief a meaningful look.

The Chief leaned his head back and looked at the dark sky, the stars reflected in his bulbous black eyes. “FUCK! FUCK ME! A goddamn vampire? Which god did I offend? This is just great!”

The crowd of goblins drew a deep breath collectively, and there were a few moans of terror from the crowd. The temperature seemed like it had plummeted and all the goblins were shivering in fear, which anyone would tend to do when they found out a predator that saw them as snacks had showed up locally.