We stepped over the Blood-Spawn's body and rounded the staircase to the next room. Unlike the previous, there were no fires. The sconces were empty. But this room was a far cry from the dust covered and abandoned rooms of the previous.
Coffins dangled from the ceiling, swaying slightly in a wind that blew through open sections of the wall. The coffins were all empty, dangling open. Flashlights scanned the room, casting shadows.
“Don’t put the flashlights to the windows.” Russo barked. A few of the lights that were exploring pointed downward.
There were cabinets and piles of goods near each of the vampires. They nested in here like half civilized animals, piling their belongings in their corners.
“Do you think the window is for flying out of?” Steve said, stepping away toward the window.
Jason rooted through a pile of goods, pulling out a scroll that started to glow. He dropped it.
I stayed close to Steve, looking out over the city below.
“Oh, shit!” I said, looking down at the black shapes moving through the streets. From the closest street to the farthest, dozens of shapes began to rush toward the tower.
“We gotta go.” Steve said, jogging toward the next staircase up. Wind howled through the open windows, chilling my skin. Terrible screams echoed through the night.
“Go, go, go!” Russo shouted, rushing us up the stairs. He stayed behind, standing at the door to the next stairway as the rest of us ran by him. Just as the last student crossed into the staircase, the first vampire shot up the wall, landing hard on the dark stone floor. The monster hissed, eyes narrowing as Russo’s flashlight shone on its face.
With the pull of a trigger, he sent the monster back out the window in pieces. Then he slammed the door shut.
There were more thumps of vampires arriving behind us, hissing as they landed. First three, then five more. I hoped not all of the vampires carried around blood thralls on leashes like pet — that would bring the total enemy count up to — I counted the thumps. Twenty-four monsters.
The door thumped as one of the monsters pushed on it.
“Need to barricade the door!” Russo shouted.
Steve slammed into the door as a vampires hand began to slip around to the side. It shut on the vampire, which hissed in pain. Steve beat the monsters hand with the butt of his revolver.
I jumped into the pile of junk near the door, pulling out a splintering wooden bar and throwing it to Russo, who slammed it into place. The wood creaked as monsters slammed it from the other side. I continued pulling more off the floor, including a stack of iron rods. As the wood began to break Russo dumped them into place, stepping back from the door.
It bucked and thumped, but the door was inches thick and reinforced with metal.
We all stood and stared at it for a moment, making sure it wouldn’t move. Finally, Russo turned around, looking to Jason.
“Jason.” Russo said, staring sharply at the man.
Jason was staring nervously at the scroll in his hand.
“Yes?” Jason asked.
“Scout the room ahead.” Russo said. “We’ll make sure this actually holds.”
Jason nodded. I stepped back. There was only a tiny bit of room in the entrance to the spiraling staircase — each staircase forced us to cross the previous room before climbing. We should have been near the top now — that balcony we had seen previously was likely just out these openings in the building.
With nervous energy, I lifted and pointed the shotgun to the door. It thumped and budged, but didn’t open. The wooden didn’t even seem stressed. The monsters on the other side grew louder, shouting and hissing as they pounded at the door.
After a few minutes, there was an explosion from upstairs.
“What the hell?” Someone shouted.
I turned and started up the stairs.
“We need to check on Jason.” I said, jogging up the stair case. This one was twice as tall as the previous. The door to the next room was ornate, engraved with golden filigree, and the room on the other side was ablaze with purple light.
Jason cowered against one of the walls, the elder vampire leaning over him. He was beaten and broken, clothing scorched. A huge section of the room behind him was seared from the explosion.
On the other side of him, I saw the domain seat. It couldn’t have been anything else; a towering throne that reached to the ceiling, glowing dimly with arcane light. Two huge coffins rested in the wall behind it.
I fired the shotgun. My ears rung from the gunshot in the tight room, but a chunk of the vampire was blown apart. It started regenerating, turning to me with a hiss.
“You dirty primates — ” it started, interrupted by another shot, then another as the students came up the stairs and began to unload into it.
It’s head was still missing when it retaliated. I had seen the attack in the garden earlier, a wave of red that seemed out of place in reality. I threw myself to the floor as the red wave passed over me. Screams came from behind me. I fired again.
The vampire dashed again — it had to be a skill, or some kind of magic. Earlier, he had escaped to the castle in a blur, rocketing across the sky. He did it again, but this time, he dashed toward us.
His headless body stopped an inch from the wall, hovering in midair.
Russo dangled from the vampire’s fingertips as its head regenerated.
“Shoot — him.” Russo choked out, trying to raise his own shotgun.
As the vampires head regenerated, it sunk its fangs into Russo’s shoulder.
I watched as the vampire’s regeneration suddenly accelerated. It must have used blood like a currency for healing, and it was regenerating all of its power in an instant.
“Shoot it!” I shouted, raising the shotgun and firing.
I was too late.
The vampire dropped Russo’s corpse to the ground.
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“Steve, we have to — ” I looked over to Steve and lost my train of thought.
He was staring blankly at his own arm.
It was on the ground.
I couldn’t remember if I was going to say we needed to run, or to kill the monster.
“Why is there plastic in your blood?” The vampire asked. It had regenerated completely. Bullets were bouncing off of it once more.
It floated over to me almost leisurely.
I raised the shotgun and fired. Buckshot fell from the vampires face — it winced like it hurt, but it was like shooting a human with a low powered bb gun.
“Those are going to be all over my carpet.” The vampire said, hovering toward me. “And do you know how long it took me to grow that garden?”
I kept shooting until the ammo I had loaded ran out. That didn’t take long. The monster didn’t even bother rushing to me. He knew we were trapped here. He crossed the space between us with all the same speed and aggression as someone who saw a fly in their living room. My eyes scanned the room.
Jason was clutching his stomach, deathly pale from whatever wound the vampire or explosion had inflicted on him. Russo wasn’t moving. The nursing students were dead. Steve stared at his arm.
I was about to die.
The vampire grabbed my neck, lifting me off the ground. I dropped the gun, trying to beat away the monster’s hand. It was like an iron bar stuck onto my neck.
“Get to the seat.” I choked the words out with the last of my breath.
Jason looked up at me, horrified. His eyes widened as he took in the rest of the room.
“No.” Jason said, still in shock.
“Your blood smells absolutely vile.” The vampire said, pulling me close. Its skin was cold as it pressed itself to me, sniffing me before holding me out. He looked at me like a particularly offensive piece of garbage. “But I’m still not full. What have you been eating? Oh, never mind. Just die.”
I gasped as the monster slammed a fist into my stomach, pinning me to the wall and sinking ice cold fangs into my neck.
[Sanguine] granting me an excruciating perspective as my blood began to move against my own will.
I reached out and stopped it.
The vampire flinched, trying to pull its teeth back, but they were stuck in my neck along with my frozen blood. My veins felt like a bomb had just gone off in them.
I felt the poison in my veins spinning.
Earlier, when I pulled the poison out of the monster’s blood, I hadn’t actually done that intentionally. It was like the poison was sentient. And now, it slowly crept its way up my neck, exploring, tentatively questing, like a dog that had smelled food but didn’t know where it was. I didn’t have the spare control to try to bat it down with Sanguine and to hold the monster still.
I was going to die. But I would die fighting.
As if he could hear my thoughts, Jason appeared below us, lifting that scroll he had found downstairs. It was tattered now. I caught him lift it from the edge of my vision. A complicated symbol lit up on the scroll.
Then an explosion seared my skin, throwing me and the vampire both into the wall. For just a moment, his own control slipped. I felt, for the lack of a better word, a sort of magical intent on his teeth, buried in my own flesh. And, with [Sanguine,] I reached out and pulled on it.
But what came through wasn’t blood.
The poison in my own body was black; it was sharp to perceive, jagged, and edged, and it felt alive.
What poured into me through this monster’s own blood was a hole in the world. It was the noise of radio static; it was the scream of a star’s corona, searing space, stripping the atmosphere from worlds.
[Sanguine VI has reached Sanguine VII!]
I felt more than just blood and poison. Memories and experiences poured into me in fractured images, as if I was stealing them from the monster. It screamed, mouth still buried in my neck. Some of the experiences were of the monster using its own skills.
[Sanguine VII has reached Sanguine VIII!]
It ripped its teeth free by pulling itself backwards, tearing apart my flesh and leaving me twitching on the floor.
I held the blood in.
“What the hell is wrong with this planet?” The vampire shouted, floating in midair. “I didn’t pay for this level of service!”
I laughed. I must have been losing consciousness or my sanity or both. I was imagining the vampire was ranting like an angry customer.
[Alert: Poison (Hemophagoviridae Strigis(Greater Vampire) has been refined to a grade that exceeds the resistance provided by the Uncommon skill [Silver Chalice.]
[Alert: You are not permitted to view skill rarities. System Administrator notified.]
[Alert: Poison has exceeded resistances. Conversion in process.]
[Alert: You have drank the blood of a Progenitor Vampire. Poison has been refined.]
[Race conversion in progress: Eli Gray (Human) to Eli Gray (Progenitor Vampire)]
[HAIL THE CATALOG]
The vampire hovered down toward Jason.
I crawled forward, trying to get in the way, to do something — anything. The poisons in me ravaged my body. The room became more visible. More comfortable, no longer cold despite me dragging myself on the floor. I felt the wound on my neck stop burning. I could barely control my muscles.
I poured my blood into them, trying to pull my body forward. It brought with it poison.
[Silver Chalice VI has reached Silver Chalice X!]
[Sanguine VII has reached Sanguine X!]
[Skill Synergy detected. Merging skills.]
[Conversion complete! You have gained innate racial skills.]
[Crimson Veil I] [AGI +10] (Adaptive skill)
[An adaptive skill! You haven’t seen one of these before! Too bad you don’t get to know how rare this one is. Good luck leveling this one up! This skill’s active effects change based on the properties of the blood you’ve imbibed. Oh by the way, you’re a vampire now! Warning: This skill is unusable if you are out of blood.]
[Wicked Implement I] [STR +10] (Adaptive Skill)
[Another adaptive skill! Wow, you are really rolling in it. How did you get this many… oh, Progenitor blood? Aren’t you like, level 3? You’re F#@KED! This skill’s active effects change based on the properties of the blood you’ve imbibed. Warning: This skill is unusable if you are out of blood.]
[Beyond Death I] [Con +10]
[When you take damage, spend your remaining [Blood Reserve] to heal an equal amount of health! Speed of regeneration gated by skill level. Warning: This skill is unusable if you are out of blood. This skill will consume blood and cannot be disabled. This skill will inflict the [Feral] debuff if you are out of blood.]
[HAIL THE CATALOG]
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[Unique Triumph! Title earned. Early Adopter! You are the first local to upgrade their species. Congratulations! +5 to constitution.]
[Level up! Point available!]
The system did a lot of weird shit to your brain. I know, of course, that these vampires aren’t speaking english. It all sounds like english to me.
The prompts, too, are weird. You can feel them dilate time as you read them, single moments stretching on to accommodate you as you read through the prompts.
You couldn’t stop reading once you started — the information was being beamed into you. It was with a cold, rational mind that I read each of the prompts, the dilation of time preventing even the biochemical, emotional reaction that I knew would surely follow.
I didn’t understand exactly how on rails the way the system forced you to process information was until the moment my last prompt faded away.
After the conversion, with the vampire still hovering above Jason, there was one more message.
[Status: Feral! You are out of blood. You have entered a blood frenzy! Three hours remaining until death.]
One moment I was there on the ground, crawling toward the vampire.
The next, Steve was pointing his gun at me.
What happened between came back to me in a flurry of broken memories.
I activated [Crimson Veil.] A moment later, I shot forward, crossing the room in a furious blur.
Not into the vampire.
Into Jason.
He screamed.
And his blood was ambrosia.
Barely conscious of what I was doing, I activated [Sanguine,] turning Jason into a husk. He stopped screaming.
[Temporary skill gained: Shadow Step III]
[Adaptive skills have converted to Shadow]
The vampire started talking again. Always talking. This piece of shit — I didn’t remember what he said. I felt Jason’s blood, hot and wet and warm and right stuck to my face, and I activated my skill again, jumping to the vampire mid sentence.
It’s smug word was lost half spoken, broken into a scream as I blurred forward. This time, I was invisible, and I arrived and activated [Wicked Implement] before the vampire knew what was happening. I swung my hand.
The monsters arm went flying away. Those red lines the vampire had used to kill so many of us — that was [Wicked Implement.] Magic that cleaved through the air and left gouges in the stone. With Jason’s blood flowing through me, they were invisible.
[Shadow Step III has leveled to Shadow Step IV!]
The vampires arm grew back like boiling water, bubbles of flesh expanding and not stopping. Its sleeve terminated in a messy cut, revealing it’s muscled bicep. It clenched a fist and flexed.
“You dumb upstart human.” The vampire said.
Then it removed both of my arms. They fell to the ground.
I head-butted the monster as my own arms started to regrow.
I was faster and stronger than I had been. And the vampire was weak, damaged over and over through the day. I didn’t wait for my arms to grow back. I threw myself on it.
I didn’t remember anything more than flashes of pain. Tooth and claw, we took each other apart, tearing sections out of each other just to grow them back. His blood tasted awful, his blood and stench clinging to the inside of my nose.
In the end, I stood over a mangled corpse, mouth heavy with the taste of iron and bile.
And I was still thirsty. I swallowed reflexively, but my mouth didn’t have spit. My stomach felt empty.
[Progenitor Blood has overridden previous blood. Adaptive skills reset. Temporary skills lost. Difference in skill levels retained.]
“Stay the fuck back!” Steve said, pointing his gun at me. He backpedaled across the room, away from me.
I dove.
And exsanguinated his severed arm.
The stump of his arm had sealed as the system expended health points, stabilizing it.
Now Steve hyperventilated as he held the gun between us, staring me down. I dropped the withered husk of his arm.
He pulled the trigger.
The bullet shot through me and out the other side. I started healing.
“Steve — ” I said, trying to be calm, taking a step forward. Steve pulled the trigger again.
Another hole blew open in my back. I felt my blood levels drop as [Beyond Death] starting exchanging my blood pool for health points.
Steve pulled the trigger — but he was out of rounds.
“Stay the hell back!” Steve shouted. Then he dropped the pistol, throwing himself towards Russo’s corpse — and his gun.
I activated [Veil of Crimson.] The skill was a magical dash, but it felt like being picked up by a hundred hooks and thrown forward. In a flash I crossed the room, grabbing the gun and pointing it away.
“STEVE!” I snarled, now standing in arms reach of him. He stopped half way from scrambling to his feet.
He was so weak. So slow. I could kill him right now. I looked down at the gun in my hand. I was deforming the metal. My nails were sharp — almond shaped, and pitch black. My skin was alabaster white.
“Eli?” Steve asked. “Are… is that you?” Steve asked.
I looked at him. Fear and relief warred for control of his expression.
I held out the gun to him.
He stumbled forward, his right elbow lifting as if he aimed to reach for the gun with a hand no longer there.
His eyes widened. Then shook. Then he started laughing.
“This isn’t real, right?” Steve asked. “My arm. The system has to let me — this is a dream. I can regrow it.”
I frowned.
With everyone else dead, the sound of vampires still pounding at the door below us became the loudest sound in the night. The rain was in full force now, the weather assaulting my castle.
Steve grabbed his head with one hand, rocking on the ground.
“Steve…” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Get away!” He shouted. I flinched back.
Steve crawled to the wall in the corner of the room.
“Russo?” He asked. Then he looked around.
“It’s just us.” I said, staring down at the corpse of the vampire. It was unrecognizable, just a mangled thing, the bare outline of a human shape.
I was a vampire now. It didn’t feel shocking. The entire world felt cold. Muted, even. Blood and offal clung to my clothes, to my mouth, to my face. Steve rocked in the corner.
“We have to take control of the domain seat.” I said, walking across the hall. I briefly wondered if I could hover like the vampire could. I didn’t feel like I could fly.
I wouldn’t be jumping off any buildings to find out, either.
Staring at the castle’s domain seat didn’t do anything. I sat there for a moment, only a foot away, before holding out my hand to it.
[You have two skill points available!]
The system gripped my mind and overwhelmed me.