Congratulations. For putting your own ambition above those of your offspring, you’ve earned 1 vampire experience.
Congratulations. For utilizing your offspring to further your own ambitions, you have earned 150,000 vampire experience.
Vanessa willed the experience triggers out of her mind as she walked down the long corridor toward her Bossroom. The whole way was simple and utilitarian, just what she needed to get around in her own raid quickly and without stumbling upon unlucky adventurers. As such, it was just bare concrete walls and an arched ceiling, lit by two rows of fluorescent light. It didn’t mesh with her old-aristocrat theme at all, and of course, they needed to make sure that no adventurers would ever be able to find the entrances to these tunnels, or there would be hell to pay.
Perhaps she should give Victor that tip now that he was going to run his own dungeon. How had he grown up so fast? And where had she gone wrong? She never meant for him to inherit vampiric hunger, however useful that skill was. In a way, she was happy for him. He would experience all the joys that she had experienced. That rush that pushed you forward, creating your first dungeon. Expanding, grabbing more and more territory. Poking the players in the city, and seeing how they reacted. She still remembered the look on their faces when she had first raided them. It had been glorious, so very exciting. The players liked it too, even though they complained about her destroying their workshops and houses and city hall and church. Oh yes… burning the church had been fun. People on the forums had been writing about that "event" for weeks.
If he kept going like this, Victor would do all of those things and more.
He’d learn how to make his dungeon appealing, so players who discovered it would explore it and talk to their friends about how cool it was.
He would experience the joy of reeling the players in and enjoy all the cool little Easter eggs that he had put into his décor for them.
Of course, he would have to find his own theme, perhaps something that touched upon hers but was distinctly his own, which would take time, and would keep him tinkering until late at night.
Yeah…
He would put in overtime.
He’d get home far too late.
He would sacrifice time with people that he loved only to provide for them.
He’d have to do all the things that she never wanted for him to endure, and the fucking system had rewarded her for pushing him down that path. She was more familiar with it than most, knew more about the way it worked than anyone, except for the scholars, the priests, and perhaps Satan himself. She had used it to great effect, to propel herself to the heights that made her dominate the torture 100 for years. The system had done well by her, but sometimes, it could fuck right off.
At least the trigger hadn’t leveled her up. Denny would have been pissed. The dungeon core was struggling to keep her level down as it was. She needed to increase her player intake, even if it meant sacrificing some of her mid-bosses a few times more often per week, which meant increased overtime pay. At least the players' approval ratings were still high, which meant that she could probably go ahead with her plans for raid #3 and keep her storyline going. She tried not to think about the fact that three raids were pretty much the limit; no one had ever managed to run more than that, because the players' interest in the storyline just petered off at that point.
She sighed, she was doing it again. Grabbing the handle of her rapier tighter, she willed herself to focus on the here and now. This time, it worked. She would have enough time to think tonight when she came home and talked it over with Cecil.
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Now she had a raid group to destroy. With a wicked smile that she didn’t even have to force, she opened the door to appear on a balcony high above the "middling little peasants." As she willed her vampiric aura to levitate her off the ground, she raised her voice, startling the group trotting along below.
"Ah, how wonderful! I see a troupe of jesters has arrived to provide some momentary distraction. ‘Tis a pity that it will be over far too soon."
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Congratulations! For employing cunning rhetoric to achieve your ambitions, you have been awarded 15000 [Vampire] experience!
Your [Vampire] level is now level 6.
Your [Vampire] level is now level 7.
Your total level remains level 18.
As the infernal glow of his level-up enveloped him and lit his room in a pleasing orange-red, Victor couldn’t help but pump his fist and hiss a quiet 'Yes!'
That had gone far better than he had hoped. He couldn’t wait to tell Waverly that they would be working together soon. And to think that he had almost given up….
He leaned back in his chair, a high-backed, old wood affair, a surplus from his mom's office, matching the heavy desk that dominated his study. It was quiet in here, as usual, and now that the brightness of his laptop no longer cast its ghostly illumination across the room, it was dark, too.
Victor sighed, and with the air leaving his body, his smile bled from his features as well. He tilted his head back as far as he could, stared up at the ceiling, and said 'Yes!' another time. The word echoed lonely in the dark chamber, getting swallowed by the rows of leather-bound books that watched him from their silent vigil upon their shelves.
A few seconds ticked by before he got up, pushed the chair back with a screech that ripped the silence painfully, and made his way back to his bedroom, through the large two-winged doors. He closed them behind him quietly, then beelined straight for his bed. He was about to drop into it face-first when a thought made him stop mid-motion.
What was he doing? Why did he want to sleep so badly? And why was there this pulling feeling deep in his gut, threatening to rip his heart apart with a thousand natural shocks?
The answer was right there, even though he didn’t really want to think about it. What good would it do to remember that brief conversation? He’d gotten what he wanted, hadn’t he? He got his internship, and she’d even been happy for him. Asking for more would just be greedy, and ungrateful.
But then why did he feel like he felt?
And why even worry about it, and try to fight it? He’d much rather close his eyes and take another nap, forget about everything that the day had brought, good and bad. Yet, whenever he decided to just fall forward and let the soft mattress take him, it somehow felt wrong. That had never happened before. After last Friday, though, his blood was still racing in his veins, thoughts circling around possibilities and what the future could bring. Assuming that what he imagined would happen without a hitch had been a mistake, it turned out.
He pushed himself away from his bed and went over to the window instead. Standing in front of it with his hands clasped behind his back, he stared out at the perfectly manicured park, his eyes fixing, as always, on the lone oak that stood at the center of the large meadow. He didn’t need to be close to it to know that it had a hundred skulls and thousands of candles burning in its branches. He'd climbed it so often as a kid that he knew every single wooden gnarl by heart and could feel the hardwood in every knot of his muscles. He didn’t even know how many hours he’d spent up there, waiting for his parents to come and get him.
Actually, it was a good thing that everyone needed to eat. He traced his fingers over the windowsill, trying to find dust on the lacquered wood, but his finger came up empty, as always. Now that he thought about it, the bed was freshly made, too. Brenee and her crew must have cleaned the room while he was in the study. Everything was in its place, except for a small, plastic CD player with the headphones still attached. Brenee probably hadn’t known where to put it.
That tearing feeling in his stomach increased, even though Victor had no satanic idea why. As if by themselves, his feet steered him to his bed. He reached for the player. There was a slight tremble in his fingers. It stopped once it touched the plastic.
He clipped the player to the rim of his pants, adjusted the headphones so that his ears didn't get in the way, opened his door, pressed play, and decided to go climb his tree. Just like old times. Except this time, the mournful wailing of guitars soothed his mind, telling him that while his wounds were real, he could rise above the sorrow and turn the hourglass again.
He sat cradled in his tree and listened to the album three times. After the first, he felt nothing. After the second, he finally felt sad. After the third, he got out his Hellphone and texted Waverly the good news. When she responded with more emojis than text, as usual, he found himself smiling.
Yeah, maybe this hadn’t felt like it was supposed to. But he could always try again, and with people like Waverly by his side, success was inevitable.