A handful of people joined with us to go to the store.
Amber stayed behind, choosing instead to guard the hardware store. They would need just as many people to stay here in case more of those monsters were roaming the street outside the castle. And they must have been out here somewhere.
Me, Steve, Jason, Russ, and three of the other nursing students headed to the store. It was on the other side of the campus. We had to circle around.
The streets were illuminated by still running cars, engines vibrating quietly. Some radios poured static into the air. We kept close to the walls and low, moving quietly and quickly to circle the school. The store wouldn’t be too far. We could carry back our stolen goods in grocery cars.
We crossed three streets before we ran into our first monster. I froze when I saw it.
It was a man dressed in flared purple robes floating ten feet off the ground. He hovered, bobbing up and down like he was resting in the water. Two Blood Thralls sniffed at the ground before him, attached to him by a leash that reached back into the air.
The monster’s snapped to attention, barking at us like dogs, but held back on the leash.
“Well well, now how did we miss you guys?” The vampire asked, starting to lower itself to the ground.
Its head exploded a second later as Steve answered. The two monsters snapped forward, no longer held by the leash as the rapidly regenerating vampire corpse collapsed to the ground. I forgot about the shotgun I was holding as one of the two monsters charged on top of me, reaching out almost instinctively to activate [Sanguine.]
The monster froze, and I held the skill until the notification of the kill popped up, then dropped it.
A shotgun blast sounded as Russo shot the other monster down.
Steve walked past them, double tapping the vampire, shooting three times before its regeneration finally stopped.
“They’re vampires.” Steve said. Then he spat on the man shaped monster’s corpse.
“Let’s go before someone investigates the noise.” Russo said, already jogging forward.
We ran, not running into any more monsters. Eventually, we reached the other side of the college and crossed the road toward the campus. The castle that had appeared out of thin-air and displaced the college campus seemed to be at the center of all of this. That was where the big boss was.
We had to cross through an open park, exposed by line of sight to the towering ediface at the center of the vampire’s lair.
“Fuuuuck.” Steve said, staring off into the dark.
“What is it?” I asked as we continued walking forward.
I saw it, though.
The castle’s emergence had thrown the college campus underground, but it had stretched much farther than I originally estimated. All that remained of the grocery store was the back wall, leaning unstable where the rest of the building had been torn away. Emergency lighting illuminated rows of furniture inside. That was all that was left of the super store.
We all stood there in the dark, staring. Ash fell from the sky.
After a few minutes, Russo slapped me on the shoulder.
“Let’s head back. We can find food in all the houses.”
“We can’t survive scrabbling for resources forever.” Steve said. He was staring at the castle. He turned around to face us. “We need to kill the domain controller. And we need to kill him right now.”
Russo frowned.
“I didn’t sign up to go in there.” One of the nursing students said.
“I’m not even at full health.” Jason said, shaking his head.
“Let’s head back and come up with a plan.” I cut in, seeing Steve getting more and more irritated.
He accepted it, seemingly reluctantly.
We moved all the way around the castle in the other direction, stretching the time it took us to return, but avoiding the area we had fought in previously. The fire was still raging in the city, now spreading, but the first trickle of rain was starting in the sky.
There was no incident on the way home; probably because the rest of the vampires had headed to the source of the noise — the last fight we had been in.
The rest of the city was far, far too quiet. I wondered how many peopled survived right now, holed up in homes and locked away. If we didn’t kill the domain controller and lift the permanent night effect, they would all die.
The front of the hardware store had a pile of Blood Thrall corpses. Russo cursed when he saw that, running up. I saw that the windows had been half boarded up — there was broken glass on the ground.
“Everyone alright?” Russo asked, stepping inside.
“No one got bit.” Amber said, arms folded as she frowned at Bea.
Bea turned to us, her eyes now glowing green.
“We should go hunt them.” Bea said.
“I was saying the same thing.” Steve said. His voice was intentionally louder than it needed to be, loud enough for every to hear him.
Russo sat down, sounding tired.
“What happened to the store raid?” Amber asked.
“The grocery store is under the castle.” I said, stepping forward. “We need to… to make a decision.” I looked around the little hardware store. “It sounds like, from the system, if we kill the vampire at the top of that castle, we can restore the sun — which should keep everyone holed up in the city safe.”
“The plan was to get the food and run, wasn’t it?” Amber asked. “There’s a military base just a few miles south of us. We should go there!”
“There’s no guarantee that things aren’t even more fucked that direction.” Steve said. “Or that it will be safe to get there. Not without a lot more levels.”
Russo sat quietly in the corner.
“What do you think?” I asked, turning to Russo. He nodded slowly.
“We should take a team of volunteers to try to kill the vampire. If we don’t return by tonight, everyone left should run.”
----------------------------------------
I was surprised how many people volunteered, even after Russo reminded them multiple times that this might be a suicide mission. We had to turn some of them down. Some of the people who were willing to fight had to stay with the nursing students hiding out in the hardware store.
“I don’t like it. But I get it.” Amber said, folding her arms.
“I’m going.” Bea said, eyes still glowing green as she dragged out a case of propane tanks into the lobby.
“What are those for?” I asked.
“You said the place was surrounded by a — an evil garden?” Bea looked around, double checking as if to make sure she didn’t sound crazy. She did sound crazy. But all of this was nuts. “Hold on.” She said, leaving the open propane tanks.
She brought a can of gasoline and a few boxes from the shelf. She immediately fumbled and dropped the boxes. I picked one up.
“Is this a flamethrower?” I asked, looking incredulously at the box.
“Technically, no! It’s a torch. Its used for killing weeds! It’s a great price, too. Me and my dad used them for our garden…” Bea trailed off, looking down at the box, then out at the city worriedly.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“These will be great.” Russo said, slapping her on the shoulder.
In the rest of the store, people were getting familiar with their weapons, taping on flashlights and grabbing utility knives. There was a circle of people around a pile of trash as they cut open supplies.
We ended up with three of the not-flamethrowers. And a can of gasoline. They worked great; I didn’t know if the living plants at the garden would burn.
I carried one of them, the propane tank hanging from my back with a makeshift carrier made out of a backpack and rope.
“Maybe you’ll get a fire power skill.” Steve half joked as he tied together another of the backpacks. He was not carrying one, however. Instead, his bag was full of tools. We didn’t know what else we’d need. We brought rope and crowbars, and someone even had a sprayer full of pesticide.
Everyone ate again and talked in the quiet silence that followed.
There was no help coming. They would either have to loot the food from houses and then plunge blind almost a days march away to a slim potential of safety, or fight what was possibly a suicide mission. Most people had stopped crying. We were all out of options, but no one more so than I was.
[Status: Poisoned. Seek immediate help. Affliction: Hemophagoviridae Strigis (Blood Spawn) 2:12 remaining until death.]
I was exhausted. It should have been the middle of the night, now, hours deep. Instead, the sun was still overhead, wrapped in clouds. I wondered if the earth had spun with the apocalypse, or if we were even on earth at all.
“How are you so good at this, Russ?” I asked, turning to him. He was eating a sandwich.
“So good at what?” He asked, looking over.
“Staying sane in all this chaos.”
Steve wrapped the rest of the sandwich back up in plastic, setting it on a shelf next to him.
“I was in the military for a bit.” Russo said.
“You were? How did you end up as a janitor?”
Russo laughed.
“Honestly, I spent most of my time in the military cleaning too.” He said, checking over the shotgun on his lap. “This job was comfortable. Plus they paid for my degree — the college — once my GI bill ran out. I just never left.”
“You’re good at being a leader.” I said to him.
“I’m not.” He replied. “I’m terrified. If it wasn’t for all of you… I probably would’ve ran away. But I couldn’t just leave you.”
Russo stood, stepping into the center of the room, between the customer service desk and the looted shelves.
“Alright. This is your last chance to back out. We’re going to try to break into an unknown, magical monsters lair and shoot it to death. Are you all still in?”
No one said anything, but the whole room stood. Finally, after a moment, Amber spoke.
“Go kill that fucking thing.”
There was a round of good lucks and chorusing, people patting us on the back as the room split in two.
Then we marched straight down the street. There was a nervous tension in the air between the twelve people who came. Bea came with us this time, adding to Steve, Russo, me, Jason, and the other nursing students.
We walked around the college campus, electing not to set the thorned briar ablaze from the direction of the hardware store. If the vampires in the castle had even a modicum of knowledge, they would chase back the fire from the direction we attacked. Instead, we circled around to where the city was already ablaze.
I turned the torch on, joined by two others in sparking a blaze to the garden. The briar recoiled, catching like tinder, the entire thing starting to writhe and bulge outward. We stepped back and watched. It made the fire worse, spreading the kindling flame until a few parts of the garden started to blaze. Then it screamed. Bea ran forward, chucking the metal gas can into the garden. It landed a few dozen feet away.
“Why would you do that?” Steve asked.
“I thought it would like blow up…” Bea said.
“It probably will!” Steve said.
I shut the valve, stepping back away from the rapidly spreading fire. The garden screamed again, the entire thing shivering as it did. I worked as quickly as I could, stripping the backpack off of myself.
“Who — you’re still alive?” A voice boomed across the sky. Above, the vampire that had stared down at us floated across the sky until he hovered above us.
His eyes glowed burning red as he descended.
Steve shot at him.
The bullets hit… and did nothing. They bounced away off his cloak. People kept shooting anyway.
“What interesting technologies you apes have, here.” The vampire said. It stared down curiously before sighing loudly. “I don’t think I can put my garden out before it burns.”
He didn’t look human. He had scaled skin in rich purple colors. I wondered if animals could be infected, too, or if this was what the final stage of vampirism looks like. The vampire we killed in the street earlier was completely, ordinarily human. I hadn’t checked for fangs or anything.
I threw the propane tank at him, backpack and all.
He simply slid out of the way, floating on the air, staring at me with an expression that asked ‘are you stupid?’
The propane tank exploded behind him, a wave of force hitting me as air expanded. A fireball bloomed to life.
“Get back — ” Russo said, grabbing and dragging me. The other two people with flame throwers already had.
The gas tank exploded as we ran away, joined by a horrifying, blood curdling scream.
----------------------------------------
Russo took his jacket off, beating it against the ground. A swell of flame had caught the edge of it. He cursed. I pushed myself to my feet, looking back. The vampire was still screaming, the sound too loud to ignore, and absolutely horrifying.
He still floated in midair, but now he was ablaze, and still screaming. He rose into the night, hovering like a living fire ball, arms flailing wildly as if he could scrape the fire away. He flailed, his scream changing tone from surprise to rage, and beams of red shot forward from his hand, bright matte red like a texture that didn’t belong in the world, visible even through the darkness. They carved and gouged at the ground.
One whipped by me, missing me.
Behind me I heard people scream and shout, and then gunfire erupted at the floating fireball vampire.
The bullets seemed to be hitting, now. He screamed again, every shot sending burning chunks of flesh raining down.
The vampire shot away in a blink, turning into a burning line that shot into the castle keep. I heard a door slam shut.
“Is everyone…” I trailed off as I turned around. One of those red beams had cut one of the nursing students in half. “Oh.”
Someone threw up next to the corpse. Jason looked pale as a ghost.
We sat there outside the burning garden. In short order, the entire briar went up, hedge maze and all. With the briar constantly writhing and spreading the fire, it reached the entire area in only minutes. The plants stopped moving, finally dead as they burned.
Some of the people behind me flinched, clearly having leveled up. A few more people’s eyes glowed green.
Bea’s eyes glazed over as she clearly manipulated her system, redeeming skill points we couldn’t see.
“We need to bury him.” One of the nursing students said.
“We can come back with a shovel later.” Russo replied. “If we live.”
They went quiet.
It took a quarter of an hour for the fire to calm down entirely. Ash stuck to my clothes, and the ground still had glowing embers.
“How badly hurt do you think that vampire was?” I asked Steve, looking up at the castle.
“With any luck, very hurt.” Steve replied, taking the first step onto the burned garden. I followed after.
It was like stepping through soft snow, a pillowy layer coating the ground. As we crossed toward the castle’s gate, I saw dozens of shapes in the ash, the bodies of the local monsters to the garden. Before the gate, we reached the fountain of blood we had seen. It was stained black from the flame, the blood within boiled away. The air smelled like ash and blood.
The front door to the castle was ajar, the door splintered. The top half of it had caught fire and burned before opening inward. It hung heavy on its hinges. I turned the flashlight on my shotgun on, stepping into the castle only a step behind Russo and Steve.
The ground floor of the castle was a dusty mess, like no one had been here in ages. Side passages opened to rotting barracks with collapsed furniture. One door opened to a kitchen of dust covered stoves.
Empty sconces left the rooms dark.
“Do we sweep the bottom floor? Or go up?” I asked, looking at a spiralling staircase that led further up the fortress.
“We will be here for hours if we sweep every inch of this place.” Russo replied. “Up we go.”
I ended up leading the way, stepping up into the dark. The staircase ended in a door. Purple light dancing on the other side. I heard a fire within. I pushed the door open with a foot, every muscle in my body tight as I took the room in.
Outside of a fire was some kind of giant thrall. A blood spawn. The thought came to me unbidden, but it felt correct. My own poison was a blood thrall.
It was nothing close to human. It looked more like a dragon — or a wyvern. Huge clawed arms stretched with ragged, bat like wings. It’s jaw was open and full of uneven teeth. It snapped towards us experimentally, but it was chained there. I didn’t know if the chains would hold it; it’s alabaster white flesh was pulled tight over bulging cords of muscle.
We had to move through it to continue upward.
“Holy shit.” Bea said, stepping up behind us.
The monster leaned down, sniffing experimentally with its huge, almost reptillian mouth. It’s black lips peeled back in a snarl.
I looked at Steve. For once, he hadn’t shot right away.
“This is going to hurt your ears.” I said. Then I lifted the shotgun and fired.
The sound rung in the room. The monster screamed and thrashed. Others joined in, firing on the monster until it dropped dead. Only once the system notification popped up did we start to walk forward.
“Hold on.” I said, stopping at the monster and leaning down.
“What? You think it has loot or something?” Steve asked, leaning over.
[Status: Poisoned. Seek immediate help. Affliction: Hemophagoviridae Strigis (Blood Spawn) 1:37 remaining until death.]
This was a blood spawn. Previously, with access to another poison, I was able to refine the one in my blood. It had extended the timer.
I leaned over the monster, touching its chest. Its skin was ice cold. But I felt its blood pumping beneath, the whole of it black and slick like poison.
The poison in my veins seemed to sense it too, writhing around in my arm as if it could get out. I tried to let it, to force my own poison out, hopeful for just a second as the blood in the monster got closer.
“I need a knife.” I said.
Steve handed me one, and I cut the monster open. Its blood gushed out, commanded by [Sanguine,] but it wasn’t the blood I was looking for. Piece by piece, I pulled out the poison — the very poison that made this monster what it was. A black ring sat outside the wound.
“What the hell are you doing?” Steve asked.
“Experimenting.” I said. “I think I can…”
The ring of poison stabbed into me, suddenly solid, like spiked ferrous metal jamming into my arm. I gasped for a moment, then it broke into hundreds of tiny needles that pierced into my arm and disappeared.
[Status: (Poisoned) has been refined.]
[Sanguine V has leveled to Sanguine VI!]
[Silver Chalice IV has leveled to Silver Chalice VI!]
[Status: Poisoned. Seek immediate help. Affliction: Hemophagoviridae Strigis (Lesser Vampire) 4:52 remaining until conversion.]
I gasped, reeling back.
“What did you do?” Russo asked, leaning over me.
I flicked my wrist. It still hurt. Little spots of blood pooled on it.
“Hopefully did something smart.” I said. “The timer that said I would die is gone, so that’s good.”
“And your eyes aren’t glowing red anymore.” Russo said, patting me on the back.
My face screwed up. I had forgotten that happened last time my timer fell below two hours as well.
“Let’s just keep going up.” I said. “We should track the domain controller down before he recovers.”