Chapter 60: Monster
At the center of a wide, polished, and overly cluttered marble table, on a small clearing between scrolls, blueprints, and piles of handwritten letters, there resided a glass dome mounted atop a golden stand, inside of which a storm of rare, milky-white sand from a planet no longer in existence swirled around and around like a miniature tornado made of ghostly dust. This priceless sand, also known as “sight-powder,” began to break apart and form various shapes, which themselves broke further apart as the white sand changed not just in texture but also in color, taking upon various different shades and hues. Like paint on a canvas, these colors blended together to create a picture: one that was so lifelike it was as though the resulting image was captured through the lens of a camera.
With a prickling sensation popping up all over his cold, pale skin, Count Olivir Soloux leaned forward in the chair in his study and peered into the glass dome. He observed what appeared to be a human kid with jet black hair surrounded by his minions of the dark. He was injured—missing an arm and an eye, but Olivir did not think that this was his doing, as the wound below the point of his right shoulder was sealed and did not look fresh, and a bandage covered what Olivir merely assumed to be a missing eye. Interestingly, alongside the kid were two Shadowfangs: a dog-type and a cat-type, and someone else, too. Someone far worse. It was the devil herself: Queen Fylwen Vayra of the Elvish folk. The sight of her made Olivir scowl. It meant she was not among the Elvish who had thus far died.
“What’s she up to now?” he muttered. “And how did she drag a human from Galterra into this? Gahh! She’s up to something. I just know she is.”
“This could all end if I just turn myself in,” a soft, sad voice said from behind him.
“No, Kolona. I will never let your aunt have you.”
She released an exhale that quickly turned to a whimper, and there was such pain in the sound of it. She was the most beautiful creature that Olivir had ever beheld, with curious green eyes and hair the color of the richest gold. It gnawed at him to see her so visibly hurt. She shed several tears, the side of her face aglow from the light of the fireplace built into the wall behind her in this otherwise dim, candlelit hall.
“She won’t stop. Not until I’m dead…again.”
“You’ll never die again. I’ll never let that happen!”
Olivir winced as a pain erupted in his skull. His head ached fiercely. He had exhausted himself almost to the point of E-debt in casting such a powerful debuff in such a wide radius over a hundred miles away. That was the extent of what he was willing to do to save his Kolona. He would never let Fylwen have her niece. And while the other vampire counts might be enraged with Olivir for starting this war merely by resurrecting her, he did not for one moment regret his decision. How could something—or in this case, someone—so beautiful be allowed to die at such a young age? And for what? Because she might someday pose a threat to the legitimacy of her first-cousin, Kalana Vayra? Kolona wanted nothing in the way of power. She was kind, warm, and did not remotely desire to rule, or in this case, contest the right to rule over a race that was nearly extinct in the first place.
Though Olivir was many, many years older than Kolona, they both looked mostly the same age. This was because, as a vampire, he aged tremendously slower, both mentally and physically. He was tall, though somewhat scrawny, and his medium-length, silver-dyed hair was still rich and thick. It would be a very long time before he outwardly appeared to be any older than eighteen or nineteen years of age. That was assuming, of course, that Queen Vayra did not kill him before that point.
Returning his attention to the glass dome before him, Olivir frowned as Kolona’s aunt, Fylwen, seemed to converse with the human kid, whose hand and two feet were radiating some kind of smoke so black in color that his “sight-powder” was having difficulty drawing it. This kid…Olivir found him to be intriguing. Who was he, why was he here, and why was he getting himself involved in this war? Olivir doubted he had been a member of the scouting party that Fylwen had been leading: the scouting party that had come closer than any other to discovering his location.
If one of Olivir’s zombie spies hadn’t caught sight of her when it had, she would have finally stumbled upon this large, fifty-acre manor concealed within an illusory fog that his sire had gifted him, and where he had spent the last year living with Kolona. Yet for all the joy she had brought him, every day with her had been overshadowed by the knowledge that they were both being hunted—by the queen.
Why won’t she just die? he wondered. That damn woman.
The sight of her always managed to darken Olivir’s mood. But truly, it had not always been this way. Ten years ago, when she had first appeared on Archian Prime as a fresh-faced, kind, and dare he even suggest innocent level-1 refugee, it had been Olivir who had found her wandering the barren fields in the ashen lands far to the south. She, along with a few hundred of her green-cloaked companions, had been in search of what she’d claimed were “rumors” of an Elvish outpost that her people had lost contact with a great many years ago. She had asked Olivir if he knew where or even if they still existed.
Well, not only did Olivir know of the existence and exact location of their settlement, but vampires had lived in peace with her white-cloaked brethren for hundreds of years. In fact, as a younger vampire only two-hundred-ten years of age, the white-cloaked, fancier-speaking Elvish folk she’d been searching for had actually been living here for almost two centuries before Olivir was born: before his sire found him as a human boy on Galterra and turned him into a vampire.
Having never known the Elvish to be anything more than a kind, wood-dwelling species, he had gladly called forth a fleet of winged Mega-Eeps and, on their backs, he’d had her group flown all the way here to the north, where they were promptly reunited with what, at the time, had looked like a genuinely stunned group of white-cloaked Elves.
The second-biggest mistake I’ve ever made, Olivir thought bitterly.
Though he felt a great deal of guilt in his cold, still heart over the way things had turned out, he did not fully blame himself for them, either. How could he have known that this woman was a member of some royal family? How could he have known that she would just “assume” command over a group of people who’d been separated from her family line for hundreds of years? But even more so than all of that—how could he have known she would militarize them, expand her territory, and explode with a power that Olivir did not even know the Elvish were capable of? How was he supposed to know she would level up so fast it almost seemed to defy reality?
Despite his initial worries, she had assured Olivir several years later that she meant vampire-kind no harm. She had gone to the high council and promised peace—provided that the vampires did not seek to inhibit her “territorial goals” or attempt to hinder her progress. They had all agreed, as Archian Prime was a very large planet and the dominant sentient species that had lived here had gone extinct two-million years prior. Thus, there was little reason for concern. It was a treaty of sorts: and it had held just fine—until Olivir had broken it.
Slightly less than a year ago, while flying on his Mega-Eep in search of high-level mobs to smite from the sky for some easily earned experience, he had flown over a woodland area not far from one of the new Elvish outposts that Fylwen had established. The queen had begun construction of additional towns in anticipation of a future need of them, as she had ordered all of her “subjects” to begin mating and breeding, which from what Olivir had understood, was just as strange and uncomfortable to the Elvish as it sounded to him. Regardless, she had demanded that each Elvish woman bear three children at a minimum. She seemed intent on bringing her race back into prominence by any means necessary, including the use of forced pairings and breeding quotas.
Given how adamant Fylwen was that Elvish kind reproduce and regrow their numbers, Olivir therefore found it odd that an entire party of them—as he recalled, it had been over twenty, a mix of green and white cloaks—would be so intent on killing one of their own kind. On this day, he had spotted them chasing a young, beautiful woman through the woods, which Olivir was able to view through the gaps between trees where he flew just below the clouds.
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“Kill her!” a male voice had shouted. “She is a heretic! Queen Fylwen demands it!”
Even though it had been almost a decade since Olivir had first seen her as a much younger girl, he quickly recalled that this had been the child who had accompanied Fylwen through whatever portal she’d taken to come here. Back then, the girl had been nervously clutching the “queen’s” hand and sobbing into the side of her trousers. He had assumed them to be family. He was therefore shocked to see the ferocity with which this girl—now a young woman—was being hunted down. And they got her, too. Indeed, they riddled the woman with so many arrows that Olivir had actually shouted out in horror as the kind Elvish folk he thought so fondly of were behaving almost like the barbaric vampires of ten-thousand years ago, back when his kind used to feed on the blood of sentients as opposed to rodents and other small animals.
Having heard his cry of confused terror, the Elvish warriors had then begun to fire on him. As a vampire, a single arrow would be enough to end him, as he had but one point into constitution. Luckily, his own, personal Mega-Eep, a T3, level-50 boss he’d named “Mantril,” had been more than powerful enough to kill the entire group in a matter of moments—and purely in the name of self-defense. Having spent the past year thinking back on it, Olivir had slowly come to believe that, if he had stopped right there, his people might have been able to sue for peace. Queen Vayra would have demanded payment for her fallen Elvish kin, and that payment would likely have been steep, but ultimately, he imagined she would have forgiven him in time. The same could not be said, however, for his next act. It was this, he was now certain, that had started the war.
With a gesture of his hand, he’d ordered Mantril to land. The creature was so massive that five trees had been knocked over with a loud series of cracks followed by an even louder number of thuds, creating something almost of a small clearing in the middle of the woods as he hopped off his mount’s back and knelt down beside the young woman, whose body had gone cold as much of the blood inside of her had leaked out onto the soil.
“I shouldn’t,” he’d said aloud as he’d gazed down upon her empty, lifeless face. Her mouth had still been partially opened as though perpetually in the process of uttering her final, fearful scream. Something about her called to him. He wanted to bring her back. He wanted to save her. Yet he knew he was not old enough. He had not yet been given permission to create more of his kind.
Unlike the Elvish—or at least Queen Vayra—who seemed to equate success via the quantity of their species, the vampires cherished their rarity and careful selection. There were only ninety-two vampires in all of Archian Prime, and Archian Prime was believed to be the only planet in the entire universe where the vampires now existed. It was therefore law that only upon reaching his or her four-hundredth birthday, and only upon passing a series of trials, could a young vampire be allowed to raise a sentient from the dead for the purpose of turning. Resurrection for any other reason was also forbidden. Yet, with another glance at Kolona Vayra’s cold, pale face, Olivir had chosen to bring this young light back into the world of the living.
Twenty minutes: that was how long a sentient could lie dead before only the Gods, should they truly exist, had the power to bring them back. In all situations, the immutable law of death and resurrection was twenty minutes. Even so much as a second longer, and the soul one wished to return would perish forever. Though turning the resurrected was not actually required, it was the only instance in which such a dark act of necromancy was ever allowed. But only for those granted such a right. For that reason, it was in direct opposition to law and custom when Olivir had opened his mouth, bared his fangs, and had bitten into her recently departed neck. He could have simply returned her to life, but given that her kind had appeared to forsake her, he had chosen to make her like him. He had turned her.
Now, as he craned his neck and kissed the hand she placed on his shoulder, he knew that he would never regret the choice that he had made. For what the elders on the high council had claimed to be the first time in history, the world saw the birth of an Elvish vampire, one of such remarkable speed and strength that had she not been such a stringent pacifist, she could likely tear apart an entire battalion of her former kin even with just a single point into constitution, as she was literally capable of moving faster than the eye could see and would likely kill any foe to oppose her before they had a chance to strike her. Yet Kolona refused to kill anything biological or non-mob in nature—even insects.
“You should rest, Oli,” she said to him.
He shook his head, then leaned forward and continued to peer inside the glass dome. “I can’t. I need to watch for any possible signs of danger.”
“Do you think…?”
Her words trailing off, Olivir half turned around in his chair and glanced at her. “What is it?” he asked, her pale skin appearing even more so.
“Do you think they’re all going to die?”
“You really care that much?” he asked. “They want to kill you.”
“Maybe that would be better,” she said. The guilt was so plain on her face that it was palpable. “My life can’t be worth all of theirs.”
“To me, it is worth all the life on this planet, including my own.”
Kolona made a sad, exhausted-sounding sigh. “So then…you’ve finally got her? My aunt, the queen.”
“Not yet,” he admitted. “But even if I fail, I’m hoping they’ll be too weak and injured to continue scouting. They were on a path that would’ve led them straight here. If necessary, we can find one of those portals, and you can—”
“I will not leave you!” she snapped. Olivir was taken aback by the heated tone of the normally soft-spoken Kolona. “You will have to come with me, or I just won’t go.”
“We’ve been through this,” Olivir said to her. “I can’t use those portals. I don’t know why. I’ve found them before, you know? I can sense that there’s something there, but…but I just can’t go through them. You can. And apparently…apparently so can he.”
“He?”
Olivir nodded at the glass dome. “That human kid. He’s a bit younger than you.”
“He came through a portal?” Kolona asked.
He shrugged. “I didn’t witness it personally, but unless he crashed a spaceship somewhere around here, I’ve got to assume he did.”
“Who is he?”
“I have no idea.”
“Why is there smoke coming out of him?”
“Same answer.”
Kolona turned around, grabbed a chair, and then pulled it up beside his. She took a seat next to him, and together they continued to watch. “I wonder what he has against us,” she said. “What have we ever done to him to deserve this? I never hurt him or anybody else. Why does that boy want me to die so badly?”
Olivir grunted. “I couldn’t tell you. Who knows why he hates us? Clearly, he’s got some kind of grudge. He did jump between worlds just to assist in killing us.”
“But I wonder why,” she whispered fearfully. “He doesn’t look so evil.”
Olivir placed his hand over hers on the table. “Maybe he just doesn’t like vampires. On Galterra, we’re pretty badly demonized because of our history. We were once very violent, especially against the weak and defenseless. We…ate them.”
“Eww,” Kolona said, her lips souring.
He laughed. “It was before my time. I grew up thinking vampires were just a myth.”
“You lived in Giant’s Fall, right? In North Bastia?”
“I did,” he said.
“Do you ever miss it? Galterra?”
“Do you?”
She averted her gaze for a moment, and after a pause, she said, “I can’t really remember what it was like. I haven’t been there since I was a little girl. Uh, my cousin and her father still live on Galterra, though. I wish I could meet them. Sometimes I think about sending her a message.”
“Who, Kalana?”
“Mhm.”
At this, Olivir shivered in disgust. “Why do you keep saying things like that?” he asked, unable to keep the anger out of his voice. “Your cousin is the reason any of this is happening. What do you think she’d do if she ever met you? She’d slit your throat just as her mother would, that’s what. You need to be stronger, Kolona.”
She frowned. “I remember playing with her when we were little. She was really nice to me. That was before Peter found our village.”
“How old were you then?”
Kolona closed her eyes a moment. “I think five or six.”
“And she’s two years younger than you, right?”
She nodded. “I think so.”
“Okay. Well, she’s seventeen now, and she’s probably not the person you remember.”
“I know,” she whispered sadly. “She’d kill me. I know. I’m not stupid. I just wish…I just wish it didn’t have to be like this.”
“It won’t be for much longer,” Olivir said, patting her arm. “We were lucky enough to snag the queen herself this time around. Once she’s gone, we can end this war, end the killing, and things can go back to the way they were before. Everything is going to be all right. My forces are winning. The Elves are tiring. There’s no one left who can—”
Olivir stopped speaking and squeezed Kolona’s hand tightly in both fear and dread as things changed near instantly. The human boy, who had several times now come so close to death, seemed to have undergone some kind of instantaneous metamorphosis of the sort that defied any logic or explanation. He simply began to “act up,” and when he did, Olivir could only watch in absolute confusion as the situation deteriorated so fast that he could do little more than breathlessly witness his demise. Having landed his strongest spell, having boxed in the queen herself, and having sent every last one of his mobs at the queen and her scouting party, he had been ready to put an end to this bloody mess once and for all. And now, as his eyes took in a sight that they struggled to believe was real, he felt his willpower collapse and his mood turn from grim to desperate.
Who is this monster? Why is he doing this to us? Curse you!