There was nothing there, another empty room, but on the far side of that room instead of a wall made from metal, there was one made from some sort of glass. Clearly, very strong glass as I could see the black void of space on the other side and it was not empty. There were hundreds of ships flying back and forth, taking shots at each other. A couple of those shots were hitting the space station causing the explosive sounds and the shaking of the station from what I now knew to be air decompression. As a shot from a nearby ship landed close to us, I could see there was a clear difference in the ships, half of them looked futuristic and expensive and the other half looked like they had been patched together from bits of several ships. The other women had gathered around me, looking out the door at the scene displayed outside the window. The one standing next to me turned her head looking at me.
“what do we do now?” she asked.
I glanced at her taking in her brown pixie cut hair, cute face with the scared look on it.
“I guess we should steal a ship and get the hell out of here.” I said jokingly, as I looked at the wall on the left and then the one on the right which Jennifer had run off to.
“...and why the hell should we follow you?” came a voice from behind me.
I did not need to turn and look at who it belonged to because they had pushed past me and walked into the middle of the room. She turned and looked back at us.
“I am going through the door on the right to find out what happened to our guide and ask her what we should do, I suggest you all follow me” she said before turning to the door and walking over to it.
We all moved out of the birthing room and followed her into the new room.
As we did, the glass window suddenly flickered and changed, from a picture of outside to a picture of a woman wearing a brown suit standing at a podium. She smiled softly to us.
"As your welcome guide has explained, the system will govern the rest of your lives. The starting skills you currently have will help decide what job field, inside of our great empire you will be working in, do not worry, you can change jobs after you serve twelve years in the job selected for you. This allows us to clear the charges accrued from your birthing and the cleaning fee of the chamber you were birthed from. Now please say out loud, status, by doing so your welcome guide will be able to also see it” the woman then paused here and waited unblinkingly.
“It’s a video.” The pixie cut brunette said as she watched the screen a bit longer.
My mind had already moved on, “status? are they serious?” went through my mind but the blue screen opened my status on display for me, no one around me seemed to notice it in the air in front of me so I read it.
Name: unknown
Clan: Clanless
Vampiric Rank: Newborn
Level: 0
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Skills:
Vampiric Bite: 1
Appraisal: 1
I read over it a couple of times and began to wonder why it looked so unimpressive and empty? My eyes fell to the words vampiric bite and I was about to prod it and see if I could learn more, maybe use the appraisal skill on it? Of course, I knew what appraisal was, I was a gamer after all but the screen came back to life before I could.
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"By now you have all opened your status screens for your welcome guide to view so I will continue my speech. You are all nameless because you have yet to be given a name, your guide will do so as she reviews your status screen and decides what job you will have. You are also clanless because you are newborn vampires and no clan is interested in a newborn unless they are male. I'm sure that also explains your vampiric rank, it will change to blooded as soon as you feed so do not worry about it, your level indicates how strong you are, the stronger you are the more chance you have of moving up in the vampiric hierarchy. Now for skills, you all have vampiric bite, it is the act of feeding on a mortal, the skill is a passive skill, your second skill will determine what job you will be doing for the next twelve years.”
The video ended there and the view of outside returned to the glass window and showed us that both sides of the battle had been decimated, leaving only a dozen ships on each side left and they were still duking it out high above the station.
This was also the moment when I heard a high pitch scream from the door on the right, I quickly turned and ran over to it to see what was going on and how I could help. If I could even help, I stopped in my tracks staring at the half of Jennifer's face that was still on her lifeless body that had fallen into the room when the door had slid out of the way.
“Jennifer is dead.” The girl standing next to the door stated with a nervous tone.
I rolled my eyes and decided in that case I was going to name myself, I didn't really want Jennifer naming me anyway.
“As of now my name is Michelle, I suggest you drag Jennifer into this room so we can close the door to keep the oxygen inside, it is getting harder to breathe.”
I told the girl by the door who quickly decided she should do just that. As the door closed there was a whooshing sound from the vents and it became a little easier to breathe again.
“Since the air is slowly leaking out of the room on the right I suggest we go left” I said to the group as I turned to the left door and walked over to it.
I felt everyone else follow me. My nose scrunched a little bit at the realization that I was having that feeling but before I could think too deeply about it, I was rewarded with the answer in the form of a blue box appearing in front of my eyes.
*Congratulations you have acquired the skill presence detection level 1*
I stumbled while trying to mentally dismiss the window. The door slid open as I stumbled, into the range of its sensor and I stepped through, seeing an expansive hallway curving to the left, the right wall was that glass again, all the way down showing the view outside. I noticed only six of those fancy ships were left fighting. I successfully dismissed the blue box as I focused on my current problem. I hurried up and began fast-walking down the hallway, trying to hurry but not outright run. I could see the battle waging out of the corner of my eye and the fancy ships soon dropped to 5 then 4. At that point, I straight out began to run. I spotted a door in the left wall and crashed into it, shoving it out of the way as I hurried in. I got halfway down the new hallway when I spotted a door labelled hanger. I quickly opened it and hurried inside. As I stepped into the hanger I spotted two small ships, one on the left and the other on the right side of the hanger in the middle was a vast open space that could have fit ten more.
Picking one at random I hurried over to the left ship, I was about halfway to it, watching the cargo door lower down to the hanger floor when a blue box appeared in the upper left corner of my vision. Inside the box was a man's face.
"I am Lord Johnathan Ardinton, elder of the Ardinton clan and holder of the vampiric rank of young noble. We are losing this fight and there are only fifteen of you left on the station. As newborn clanless are locked out of the ship’s main systems I must elevate one of you. Therefore, as the one that appears to lead your group, I hereby use my authority to name you clan elder, you may name your new clan later. I suggest you get aboard your new ship. I transfer ownership of it to you and warp away to another station. I will only be able to buy you twenty minutes before what is left of my fleet warps away."
The blue box closed and I was left standing at the bottom of the ramp, staring into the ship as what Lord Johnathan Ardinton had just said sunk in. "Status" I thought.
Name: Michelle
Clan: Unknown
Clan Members: 12
Vampiric Rank: Newborn
Clan Rank: Elder
Level: 1
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Skills:
Vampiric Bite: 1
Appraisal: 1
Presence Detection: 1